Guardian
by Sango
Summary: Love can mend grieving hearts or break them anew, and sometimes both at once. This is a different Auron romance, based on an in-game flashback of Tidus's mother, when he rushes in and says, 'Is she all right? If something happened to her...' In-progress
1. Harbinger

Guardian, Chapter 1   
Harbinger 

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_It's not like you didn't know that   
I said I love you and   
I swear I still do   
And it must have been so bad   
'Cause living with him must have   
Damn near killed you _

And this is how you remind me   
Of what I really am   
This is how you remind me   
Of what I really am... 

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That first glimpse of her tore through me like a bolt though the heart, stopping the breath cold in my chest. I hadn't thought ever to find that kind of beauty in anything again, and found myself dimly surprised that anything had managed to penetrate the numb haze of detachment I now cloaked myself in daily. Regardless, I knew at once that I had reached my destination. Sitting in a large glass window that curved out from the building to form a cozy niche, she held a book in one hand and with the other stroked the sleeping head of a child lying curled in her lap. Pale and regal, her lips moved faintly as she read, and the setting sun's amber light gilded her hair into an almost ethereal halo framing the perfect oval of her face. A warm-looking blanket draped down from her slender shoulders to spill generously around them both. It was an idyllic scene of motherly comfort, imbued with a quiet peace the like of which had been lost to me for many years. 

But as I drew nearer, the traces of recently dried tears could be seen clearly upon both faces. I stood for a moment watching them, suddenly reluctant to intrude upon this tranquil scene; I bore no good news. Finally, sensing my presence, she rose and left the sleepy child to stare wide-eyed at me through the glass as she came around to the door. Her eyes were a pale, clear violet that at that moment looked heartsore, bruised. A wayward lock of light brown hair caught briefly in the corner of her mouth before the wind swept it free. 

"Can I help you, sir?" She was distantly polite, raising her esteem in my eyes when one took into consideration my battle-ravaged appearance and the large sword that looked threatening, even sheathed as it was upon my back. I still wore the face of youth then, though I chose to keep the scar. I wanted to remember...as if I would ever have been able to forget. Her head barely reached my shoulder, but she didn't look intimidated in the slightest. Whatever kind of woman I might have imagined a boor like Jecht would take to wife, it wasn't one like this. 

"I have come at the request of Jecht, to safeguard his wife and child." Truth be told, there had been no mention of her, but I couldn't bring myself to say that. At her dubious expression, I reached into my shirt and procured the necklace. Her eyes widened then, and a hand rose to her mouth, trembling slightly like a frightened bird. Slowly, she reached out to touch it, but as soon as contact was made she jerked back as if the silver pendant had burnt her. 

She raised her head, visibly steeling herself. The lilac-colored irises darkened to purple, and her face flushed, bringing a blush to the pallid cheeks and deepening the rose of her lips. "And how do I know that you speak the truth?" She demanded uncertainly. "That you didn't just kill him yourself, and steal this from his body?" The boy, unnoticed, had crept out to join us, peeking hesitantly around her leg. 

It seemed callously cruel to speak such words to his grieving widow, and in front of the child himself, but there was nothing else to be done. I said simply, "His words to me were, 'Take care of my son. I wanted to turn him into a star blitzball player, like his old man. But he's such a crybaby...he needs someone there to hold his hand.'" 

As I spoke, the fire drained out of her, leaving her wan and colorless. "Yes. That's something Jecht would have said." She turned and drifted unsteadily into the house, leaving the door open, which I could only assume meant that I was to follow. The boy eyed me uncertainly with huge blue eyes. He looked nothing like his father, but there was something in the set of the small shoulders or the stubborn-looking chin that reminded me fiercely of Jecht. I bent and slipped the necklace over his head as I passed, and he wrapped both tiny fists around it. 

She stopped at the threshold, but didn't turn around. "He's dead, isn't he?" Her voice was toneless and neutral, but hummed faintly with an undercurrent of barely suppressed tension. 

"He's not coming back." My voice agreed with her, though the words did not, not entirely. I couldn't lie, but I could no more speak the entire truth to her than I could spear her though the heart myself. _How could I tell her, that Jecht was Sin?_ And so I settled for a half-truth. Whether or not it was the right decision was something I was to agonize over, countless times afterward, without ever reaching a conclusion. 

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_Jecht._ My love. Dead and gone forever. I'd always thought my mind would leave me if he ever departed from this life without me, and it seemed that I wasn't far wrong. Already I could feel my sanity slipping away, like water through a sieve, but I forced my feet to carry me indoors, holding myself together with my arms wrapped forcefully around myself, as though I would fall away to pieces if I let go. I had to get away from the cold gravitas of that man and the dispassionate look in his lone mahogany eye as he'd torn my life apart with mere, inflectionless words. 

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End Chapter 1 

This story is going to be a departure from my usual format in that it will be many small chapters instead of fewer larger ones. Just for something different... *shrug* ^_^ 

Song quote from "How You Remind Me", by Nickelback 


	2. Midnight

Guardian, Chapter 2   
Midnight 

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I stared hard into the dark amber depths of the cup pressed between my palms, drawing comfort from its familiarity even though I no longer required it either for warmth or to slake such a petty mortal weakness as thirst. Everything else seemed to be distorted beyond all recognition in this garishly surreal, overwhelmingly vast city, but at least they still had tea. 

I had not seen Jecht's wife since our initial encounter. I supposed that she had retreated to her rooms to grieve in privacy, and I could not blame her, though I thought it strange that her sorrow so consumed her that she had not even a glance to spare for the heartbroken small boy left behind. He stared up at me with large ocean eyes swimming in unshed tears, before he cried brokenly, "I didn't mean it! I didn't really want him to d--" He choked off the rest of the sentence as his throat closed over with a sob and he turned away, huddling miserably on the floor in a wailing ball of complete devastation, the kind one faces when your whole world is utterly destroyed. I well knew how he felt. 

At a total loss, after a moment I scooped him up in my arms and strode uncertainly down the hall, searching for his room. His small arms locked around my neck and something twisted in my chest from the unfamiliar sensation, his hot tears soaking my neck. At last, finding a door ajar with a multitude of toys scattered on the floor, I sought to deposit my now-hiccupping burden on the bed. He let go after a fashion, and I pulled the blankets up around him. 

Exhausted from the impassioned storm of tears, he quieted except for the occasional sniffle, gazing up at me with the unfettered curiosity only a child could muster up in such circumstances. "What happened to your face?" 

"A battle," was my succinct reply. "Now go to sleep." The sleepy half-protest was lost in incoherence as the heavy eyelids drooped shut. I looked at my new charge a moment, so vulnerable and weak, dwarfed by the bed that nearly swallowed his small form. I had little exposure to children; I had spent my life in service first to the priesthood and then to Braska. I had been around Yuna often enough, but she had never been mine alone to watch over. It was foreign and frightening and not at all appealing. But I had promised. _Jecht, what have you gotten me into?_

I was still brooding into my cup when I sensed light footsteps behind me, and whirled to find Jecht's wife entering the kitchen. She appeared remarkably calm and composed, to my great surprise, until it dawned on me that she wasn't completely here. Her movements were absently methodical and automatic as she slowly poured tea and sat across from me. 

"Tell me." 

I looked at her, assessing her state of mind as I measured my words, deciding how best to word my reply. My honor demanded that I speak the truth, but something inside me insisted that the whole truth was too much for this one to handle. The full knowledge of Jecht's fate would break her, crushing her like a delicate flower trampled mercilessly under the heel of some oblivious passerby. And suddenly I was determined to do whatever was necessary to prevent the bloom of life from being stolen away from this woman. I had seen too much death, my weary soul could bear no more...and I owed Jecht at least that much. The tarnish the falsehood would leave on my 'honor' meant very little to me at that point, if it would save the life of one Jecht had loved. That night, it was an easy choice to make. 

Her eyes bored into me with a piercing sharpness that belied the lethargy in her limbs. They never once left me the entire time that I spoke. I told her that I was from Spira, about the quest Braska had undertaken with me to guard him, and how later Jecht had joined us. I told her about Sin and how it ravaged my homeland, and how the three of us journeyed across the continent to defeat it. I told her everything that time allowed for...everything, except that I was dead and Jecht was not. I let her come to the conclusion that Jecht had died in the final battle against Sin, and I had then come to fulfill the duty he placed upon me. I paused in the telling only to wet my throat with a sip of tea, but her forgotten cup grew cold, completely untouched. 

When I at last fell silent, she rose stiffly, hands dangling bonelessly at her sides, as though her soul had all but retreated from her body and only what was absolutely needed to animate the remaining shell of flesh had been left behind. "Thank you," she said absently, as one would speak to a stranger on the street who'd just provided directions. She turned and left without another glance, but not before I caught sight of the crystalline tears that rolled unchecked down her face. 

I sat with my head in my hands for a long time, trying to find strength from somewhere within. Searching for my once-strong resolve, for some kind of confirmation that all was not lost and purposeless. 

Eventually, I gave up. 

I found what appeared to be a guest room adjacent to the child's room. Physically, I no longer required sleep to function, but emotionally I was wearied to the bone. Maintaining the void of detachment, stuffing away all of my own heart-rending pain and loss into a corner where it no longer touched me left me completely drained. Worse, there was never any respite from the discordant wrongness that came from still clinging stubbornly to the vestiges of life, tying a soul to a body no longer meant to hold it. It was a constant strain, trying to hold everything together, and it was unbearably painful at times, as though my soul were being stretched so thin that at any moment it would tear in two. 

I collapsed onto the bed with my arms behind my head, sinking leadenly into the mattress, exhausted but unable to still my mind long enough to let sleep claim me. It kept wandering though bitter, bloodstained memories, touching raw unhealed wounds as if to ascertain that they still radiated the same familiar pain. 

I don't know how long I'd lain there, at the end, bleeding my life out into the frozen rocky soil at the foot of Mt. Gagazet. The Ronzo finally left at my insistence, to take the child Yuna to Besaid as I had bid him. Such was Braska's wish. I knew that I was dying, but I refused to give in, to let my breathing still. The only thing left to me of all I ever held dear was my honor and the word I had given, and I could not surrender to the chill embrace of death while the task I'd accepted was left undone; my duty lay in Zanarkand. After a small eternity of harsh, numbing cold and crimson-stained snow, I got up, and with one seemingly impossible step after another, began the search for a way there. Death claimed no victory over me that day, I believed, though soon enough I realized the truth. I saw that I did not tire, nor hunger, nor thirst. If I ate or slept, it was to satisfy the habit, not the need. 

Eventually, I found him: Jecht. Sin was _not_ dead, and it was worse than I could ever have imagined, seeing with my own eyes that Jecht had _become_ the very evil that he and Braska had given their lives to destroy. It had been one thing to know it...It was quite another to face the reality, to touch it with my own hands. To feel the presence of my friend within the monstrosity that brought so much sorrow everywhere it went, leaving nothing in its wake untouched by total, black desolation. 

"Calm down, you whiny bastard," he had said, in my mind. "Stop sniveling over me. I'm all right for now. Just...remember your promise." He caught me up and bore me to the Zanarkand he'd called home, more or less in one piece, and left me with one very clear mental image, of a house and a small boy and a glimpse of something else shining and gold, though I felt he begrudged me even that faint peek at something he treasured above all things. 

And now that I'd found them, I was completely unsure of what to do next. Their world was foreign to me, too eerily bright and angular, loud at all hours of the night and consumed by a constant restlessness that made my skin crawl. There were no attacking fiends, no threat of Sin, nothing for me to guard them against. All of my skills as a Guardian, the abilities I had cultivated and honed over a lifetime of service, were of little use here. What hunted them was a driving sorrow that I myself perpetually wrestled with to no avail, and I had no solace left to offer. Darkly, I muttered an impassioned oath under my breath. Not yet thirty, I felt suddenly very old and extremely tired. My last waking thought was an involuntary prayer to a God I mostly no longer believed in. _Yevon, help me._

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End Chapter 2 

These smaller chapters should work out a lot better for those of you who were frustrated with me for not updating more often...smaller chapters are easier to handle. Don't worry though, I'm not going to neglect Sojourn :) 


	3. Rain

Guardian, Chapter 3   
Rain 

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_I'm half-alive but I feel mostly dead..._

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Awareness hovered persistently at the edges of my consciousness, finally driving me reluctantly out of the sheltering arms of slumber that held my sorrow at bay. A familiar light pattering sound banished the last wispy shreds of denial, leaving no respite as the briefly suppressed pain returned in full force, crushing the air from my lungs. It was raining. 

Backlit by the risen moon, water poured restlessly down the large glass windows of the bedroom in bright silvery streams. Matching dark rivulets of shadow coursed along the stark whiteness of my bare arms and the tangled sheets as I lay beneath the uncurtained panes, leaden and numb, no longer able to sleep but equally unwilling to rise. 

It had rained just so, our first night in this house. How romantic it had seemed then, as we lay curled together in each other's arms, spent and drowsy, letting the soft repetitive sound lull us to sleep. How different it seemed now...mournful and desolate, mirroring the tears I silently cried without even realizing. I wrapped my arms around myself as if they were any kind of substitute for the ones I desperately wanted to feel. 

_Jecht._

Jecht was...Jecht. The handsome blitzball player had swept me off of my feet the moment that I saw him. He could have had any girl he wanted, plucked from the screaming hordes that pursued him wherever he went, lured by the intoxicating mixture of starlit fame and roguish charisma. I imagine that he did, for a time. But one night he took the hand of a quiet, shy girl who stood watching him silently behind the rest, and after that he never looked back. 

The life of a professional blitzer called him away much too often, but the sport was as natural to him as breathing, and I could never have asked him to give up something he loved so much. I knew that for me, he would have, and that knowledge was enough to sustain me through the hardest times. But how I pined for those short stolen days with him, spent here and there, holding my breath at each stray sound to discover if it heralded his unexpected homecoming. I lived and breathed him, he was like air to me...or a powerful narcotic from which I was in almost constant withdrawal. 

I never asked such a sacrifice from him because I loved him, and my loneliness was small enough price to pay for his happiness. But tonight I lay cursing my altruism bitterly, my endless black grief a tangible, crushing weight on my soul. If I had only asked, he would be here now. I repeated the rueful litany endlessly to myself until finally exhaustion overcame the sadness and drug me back under the surface, down into oblivion. _If only..._

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I awoke inexplicably irritated, slightly confounded by my ill humor until the source became readily apparent: something was being bounced repeatedly against the wall near my head. Squinting against the brightness, I peered out of the blinds to see the boy throwing one of those ridiculous spiky balls at the outside of the house. He was wearing a small, dejected frown but brightened visibly when I came out to join him. 

Annoyed, I tried to look stern and imposing but failed miserably when he gave me a rueful little smile and said, "I was hoping you'd wake up." He glanced longingly toward the area of the house where the master bedroom lay. "Mom won't get up yet, and I'm lonely." 

I sighed inwardly, wondering when I'd gone from Guardian to nursemaid. But his wide innocent eyes held far too much sadness for one so young, and I found myself saying, "Well, I'm up. Now what?" 

"Want to watch me?" 

I nodded, and tried not to look bored. I settled back against the side of the house, arms crossed, reluctantly letting myself enjoy the warmth of the sun on my bare skin. Wishing irritably that I sat on actual grass, in a real yard, and not the bare stone of the small courtyard. From what I could tell, nothing green grew in all of Zanarkand. Every inch of land was paved over. It made my stomach churn; I didn't know how anyone could voluntarily live here. 

"Okay. This is a sphere shot..." 

He tossed the ball up over his head, flinging himself backwards in an attempt to kick it in midair. He was remarkably dexterous for a child his age, but he misjudged and completely missed the spinning blue and white ball. Picking himself off of the ground, he cringed as if expecting a verbal blow from my direction. 

"What?" 

"You aren't going to laugh at me?" 

"Boy, just get on with it. No one is perfect every time." 

Digging his toes into the ground, he looked down and muttered, "Dad was." 

What was I supposed to say to that? _Kids._ "There were a lot of things your father wasn't good at. Manners and hygiene, for one." 

He laughed, and I found that I much preferred to see him happy. Unexpectedly, it lessened the dead feeling inside of me to see him smile. The boy needed someone to believe in him, to encourage him to try and not belittle him when he failed. Even I, who had never played this game, could see the natural ability that his father's scorn had all but crippled. It lay dormant under the surface like a sunken treasure that sparkled and threw back the sunlight that caught it on a clear day. He was afraid to try, afraid to bring it forth and fail. I wondered what kind of parenting Jecht had known, that he'd treated his own son so. For I knew that he loved him, though the words weren't something he could say. Any fool who'd spent time with Jecht could have seen that, from the way he spoke of his long-unseen child. I felt a sharp pang of sorrow that he wasn't here now with the boy, instead of me. He should have been here in my place, with _his_ son, _his_ wife. 

_It should have been me._

Curious, grubby little fingers touched the gold trim of the black leather breastplate I'd thrown on when I arose, more out of habit than need. He was invading my personal space but I forced myself to tolerate the intrusion, gritting my teeth and checking the urge to brush him off and stand up. 

"What's your name?" he asked me. The cornflower-blue eyes were frank and curious, with a hint of wistfulness. 

Had I really forgotten to give it to him? "Auron," I said simply. 

He grinned up at me. "I'm Tidus." 

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End Chapter 3 

song quote from "You Were Meant For Me", by Jewel. 


	4. Green

Guardian, Chapter 4   
Green 

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Satisfied now that introductions had been made, Tidus went back to the vastly entertaining pastime of kicking the ball against the side of the house, but the dejected set his small shoulders had lifted, and he was now humming some happy mindless melody just softly enough that I could block out the rambling, patternless notes if I really tried. Stretching the kinks out of my back, I indulged myself and allowed my mind to staunchly maintain that the aching stiffness in my joints was merely from a battle-weary body sleeping on an unfamiliar mattress, and nothing at all resembling _rigor mortis_. But I had a morbid imagination, and my twisted sense of humor induced my lips to curve in a small, self-mocking smile. 

My black amusement dissipated suddenly as I caught the scent of something both achingly familiar and totally unexpected. The heady scent of flora drifted around me, increasing in potency as I followed it around to the back of the house. At last reaching the source, I stopped dead in surprise; it was as if a tiny patch of my homeland had been transplanted here and hidden furtively behind this house. It looked as out of place here as I felt, but it was unquestionably beautiful. In the center, a riotous collection of color bloomed on deceptively delicate stalks, jewel-like petals still sparkling quietly from the early dew that the sun had not yet burnt away. Fragrant herbs reached small green leaves toward the sky from a box under the window, lined up like tiny verdant soldiers in neat, even rows. Glossy-leaved bushes nestled closest to the wall, a darker emerald backdrop for the bright flowers and other lush greenery in the foreground, some with long wispy viridian leaves that danced leisurely under the wind's persuasion, others with wide leaves intricately marbled with pearly white lacework. One lone yellow rose blossomed on a trailing vine that stretched curling thorny tendrils around the window frame, a tiny spider dangling from a gossamer silver web in the corner. 

The boy had followed me around the corner curiously. "That's her Garden," he breathed, emphasizing the word with childish reverence. "I'm not allowed to touch it." 

"The reason for that quite eludes me," I muttered. 

"What?" His open expression reminded me that I was no longer among company capable of appreciating my brilliant sarcastic wit. I felt slightly abashed. 

"Nothing, boy." The flowers looked thirsty, the soil dry and parched around them. "Does your mother have a watering can or something?" 

He appeared to be thinking hard about that one, brightening after a moment. "Be right back!" He called as he ran gleefully around the far corner of the house. 

This random bit of greenery marginally lifted my mood, though it also evoked a fierce longing for the vast lushness of the Spiran forests, grasslands, and meadows that still stood out clearly in my mind. I wondered when and if I would ever return to them. But even so, such things were only for the living. After my death I had walked through many such places in my search for Jecht, and being surrounded by such vivid color and vibrant life had only seemed to draw my attention to the fact that I no longer belonged there. The discrepancy was muted and much easier to bear in the cold uncaring urban world that I walked in now. Even knowing this, a sharp pang of homesick longing caught me in the gut anyway. 

"Here, Auron!" Tidus waddled over to me, struggling with the weight of a very full watering can in both arms. It was decidedly less full when it reached my feet, but still managed to slosh a plentiful amount distastefully over my boots. 

I grunted in irritation but merely picked up the offending can and spent a long moment distributing what liquid was left over top of the small garden, taking care to cover the whole area and letting myself bask in the simple pleasure of nourishing something so beautiful. I could almost forget everything, just for a moment, standing there wrapped in a blanket of warm golden sunlight and sweet floral perfume, watching the bobbing of crisp green leaves under the sparkling gentle spray of life-giving water. 

"You're watering my plants?" A voice broke into my thoughts, edged with a hint of concern. 

Jecht's wife walked toward me at an almost hurried pace, a slight frown marring her features. I shrugged. "They needed it. Don't worry, I didn't give them too much." 

"Mom!" The boy threw his arms around his mother, who didn't even seem to notice that his entire front was completely soaked from his long sojourn with the watering can. She slowly returned the hug, stroking his hair. 

"Hey Mom, is Auron going to stay with us?" 

"Auron," she said slowly, as if digesting new information, reminding me that I hadn't yet given my name to her either, nor asked for hers. 

I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry, but Jecht never gave me your names. Tidus and I have been getting acquainted, but..." 

"I'm Serra. Can't quite say I'm pleased to meet you, though." There was the ghost of a sad, mocking smile on her lips that disappeared as soon as I thought I'd seen it. 

"Same here," I answered, to let her know that I understood and would rather have had _him_ here in my stead, too. 

She nodded slightly, acknowledging the response before walking slowly back toward the house. 

After another hour or so outside, Tidus decided that it was time to go inside. Serra was nowhere to be seen. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening watching 'movies' on the 'holoscreen'. It seemed like a pointless, brain-rotting endeavor, but it kept the boy quiet so I was all for it. They seemed to be like spheres, except that the stories recorded and played back for the watcher were fabricated and scripted. The insubstantiality prevented it from holding my interest very well, but there seemed to be nothing else to do, and the boy was absolutely enthralled. I picked up a book lying on a corner table, setting it down again less than a minute later after discovering that the writing made no sense at all to me, the sigils trailing across the page completely foreign and unrecognizable. Well, that would give me something to do, at least. 

Around dusk Tidus piped up, "Hey Auron, are you hungry?" Something in his voice told me he wasn't asking solely for my benefit. 

Okay. What was I supposed to feed him? I walked into the kitchen but had no luck locating anything that looked palatable. The 'fridge' seemed to contain only condiments and items best left alone to continue growing in peace. 

I stepped back and nearly fell over the boy, standing right behind me. "Damn it, don't do that." 

He looked properly contrite for all of a second. "Wanna order pizza?" 

It sounded safe enough, so I nodded. "Yeah, so how do we do that?" 

"I can do it, I'm just supposed to ask a grown-up first." 

"Okay." He proceeded to pick up another weird piece of technology that I would later learn was a phone, talking into it. He spoke with the ease of someone who had performed this same task many times. Finished, he turned to me, saying, "They said thirty minutes. I got soda, too." 

I didn't have any of their currency on me. "How are we going to pay for it?" 

"I just put it on Dad's account. I do it all the time." 

In due time, the promised goods arrived. Carrying the box over to the low table in front of the couches, he came back from the kitchen with two plates and cups. Picking up the bottle, he filled one with something dark brown and ominously fizzy. "What is that?" 

He gave me a strange look, as if to say 'you're a funny adult'. "It's soda. Mom says it isn't really good for you, but she lets me have it sometimes anyway." He glanced toward the hallway and I got the sad impression that he rather desperately wanted her to storm in here and chastise him for drinking it. 

I sighed and reached out for the cup. "Let me try it." It looked absolutely repulsive, but he seemed interested in my response. 

It was syrupy, sickeningly sweet and burned my throat going down. I couldn't imagine washing down a meal with it. "Interesting. But I think I will just have water." And some sake. A lot of sake. 

And indeed, I sat with the jug at my side long after I'd carried the sleeping boy to his room. The people in these movies were vapid and shallow, but at least the flashing colors and bright explosions forestalled any deep thinking on my part. Eventually I could bear no more and shut it off, retiring to my own room. Serra had not stepped foot out of the master bedroom all night. I wondered sadly if by taking care of Tidus I was merely allowing her to retreat further into her sorrow, and that maybe I should leave and force her to emerge and care for him...or that if I did so he would only suffer alone. 

Something later jerked me out of a light sleep; the dead do not, in fact, sleep 'like the dead'. True, dreamless slumber had eluded me for quite some time. Irritated, I rolled over and attempted to get comfortable again when another low cry caught my ears. The child cried out in his sleep, caught in the grip of some nightmare. Not a sound issued from his mother's room...was she so deeply immersed in her grief-imposed isolation that she couldn't even hear him when he called for her? His haunted cries tore even at my deadened heart, and finally I dragged myself out of the bed and padded softly to his room, peeking through the partially open door to see him thrashing around in the sheets, so tangled up in them that he could barely move. 

"Otousan--" His pale brow was beaded with sweat, his breath coming in shallow gasps. He quieted when I sat on the bed next to him, reaching out blindly to me and wrapping his arms around my midsection with a much stronger grip than I would have thought him capable of. 

"Papa..." he mumbled into my shirt, and as he visibly relaxed, I realized that he still walked in dreams. He truly thought that I was Jecht. 

After a while my eyelids grew heavy, and as the boy seemed disinclined to release his death grip on my torso, I shifted into a more comfortable position and closed my eyes...I would just rest a minute. But his soft breath was warm on my arm, his small head a comforting weight on my chest. And for the first time in many long restless nights, I slept. 

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End Chapter 4 

Sorry 'bout the wait. Too many projects and all that ^_^ 


	5. Sunrise

Guardian, Chapter 5   
Sunrise 

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In the bleak half-light of an early autumn dawn, I sifted clumsily through precarious mountains of fetchingly bright cardboard carcasses, the empty remains of many a night's meal that had been stacked carelessly on the kitchen counters. Oh, Serra had had presence of mind enough to authorize me on her account that I might purchase plainer and healthier fare to prepare ourselves, but I was a fair cook at best, and few indeed were the familiar ingredients I was able to find in these sterile, unnaturally fulgent and foreign stores. Serra had cooked a bit at first, but she rarely left her room anymore, and so Tidus and I subsisted mostly on 'take-out'. Well, _he_ subsisted, and I ate to keep him company. I had little taste for it, and even less need, but I certainly had no reason to reveal _that_ to anyone. This morning I was stumbling half-asleep through the mess because today was 'trash day', and if I didn't hurry up and get these boxes out there for the workers to collect we would have to live with them piling up around us for another week. 

Some part of me cringed in abhorrence from the disheveled state of the house as I walked through it, everything strewn about in general disarray and collecting a generous layer of dust. In another life I'd been a man who prized order and neatness, a soldier-priest who kept his quarters immaculate and was fastidious about his appearance, oiling leather and weapons regularly whether they needed it or not, polishing boots until they shone with a dull black gleam. I was not that man anymore. I had not the energy. Yet enough of him remained that I would not suffer us to cohabitate with the vermin that this refuse would soon begin to attract. 

Pausing at the front door with a bulky, overloaded bag slung over each shoulder, I glanced down the hall and grimaced. The tray Tidus had asked me to lay out for his mother had once again gone untouched. _Had she eaten at all this week?_

Summer had slowly changed into a season that wasn't quite autumn -- not to me, not without the expected brisk touch of crisp, cooling winds and the stark contrast of leaves newly dyed a riotous mélange of gold, carnelian and crimson interlaced over a bright blue sky. Though the days shortened, the temperature dropped only marginally. As the season turned over, Serra had begun to fade out like a painting left too long in the sun. All color left her already-pale skin save for the darkening circles beneath her shadowed eyes, whose unusual irises had lightened in hue from lavender to a sad, almost-colorless grey. She emerged increasingly less often from the darkened cave of the master bedroom, rising later and later, retiring earlier and earlier, until eventually she never left it at all. I cared for the child and the garden as best I could, but I fear that they both suffered under my clumsy touch. 

I was accustomed to slaying fiends and journeying through treacherous territory; how to rescue a woman drowning in her own sorrow was completely beyond me, especially when she seemed to fight all of my attempts to pull her out, refusing any proffered aid. She steadfastly waited instead for it to close over her head, swallowing her in its depthless forgetful oblivion. She wanted to die, to be again with Jecht. 

_Well, she'd be in for a rude awakening then, wouldn't she? Reaching the Farplane only to find him absent?_

I had little enough experience dealing with women, being a man fully consumed by duty, completely dedicated to my Summoner and his cause. Nothing serious had ever developed out of my brief interludes with the opposite sex, and I had never had cause to treat them with anything other than polite formality, which was not serving me well in this case. Serra merely ignored me and my attempts to civilly prod her to eat, to care for her son. The boy's tears elicited more of a response, but even his pleas eventually had little effect. Resigned, I had at last respectfully left her alone with her grief. 

I walked outside shirtless and barefoot, unaware of the chill as I deposited my plastic burdens in the appropriate place. I stood for a long moment, watching the sun begin to peek out over the watery horizon, abruptly caught up and tightly bound by bitter memories that would not yield. How many mornings had I stood thus, watching the sun rise from over the sleeping bodies of the only two people I had ever loved, the men closer to me than any brothers born of the same blood? For I had always taken the third watch, standing guard over those long hours that tax even the most vigilant, when the seductive allure of slumber tugs at heavy eyelids and muddles unwary thoughts. It had been my duty as the most experienced Guardian. I could close my eyes now and still see the pale rosy light stealing over the peaceful planes of Braksa's fair face as he slept curled on his side, the early rays adding a lavender cast to the sky blue of his unbound hair. Just as vividly could I picture Jecht, arms and legs splayed as he lay on his back, face relaxed in quiet repose and not snoring to wake the dead as I'd always assumed that he must, as loud and obnoxious as he was at any other time. He had surprised me in many ways, deftly shattering all of my preconceived notions of him and exposing them for the prejudices that they were. How I wished now that I had told him, back then, that I was sorry for that. 

Wanting suddenly nothing more than just to sleep forever and forget, I dragged myself inside to collapse into bed and seek in vain the blessed oblivion that danced elusively at the edges of my consciousness as I lay tossing and turning. I finally dozed off well after the sun had climbed into the sky, a pillow shoved over my head as a feathery aegis against the evil brightness. A pointless endeavor, as I was only to be awakened what seemed like minutes later by quiet sobbing from the next room. An additional pillow did nothing to muffle the sound so I gave a long-suffering groan and got up. 

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End Chapter 5 

~Sango (sango_chan@hotmail.com) 


	6. Flashpoint

Guardian, Chapter 6   
Flashpoint 

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Forgoing the armor, I grabbed my discarded coat from the back of the chair and pulled it over my bare skin. A clean shirt would have been nice, but the only one I owned hung in the bathroom, still drying from my attempt at hand-washing it. The 'washing machine' had looked a bit ominous, and the boy's vague instructions on its use had been less than helpful. I couldn't bring myself to wear any of Jecht's clothes, and not just because most of them were the kind of thing I wouldn't have been caught _dead_ in. 

The soft sobbing continued, the mournful sound reaching my ears even more clearly as I stepped into the hallway. I found young Tidus crying alone in his bedroom as if his heart were broken beyond repair, smothering great gasping sobs into his pillow, barely able to breathe. I approached him warily, my guarded steps suited more to facing a fiend of unknown strength than a small, lachrymose child. _Yevon help me, what am I supposed to do now?_ For one as deeply rooted in his newfound apostasy as I, his name had been on my lips a lot of late. 

The boy sat up and choked off his tears as soon as he sensed my presence, trying to look brave and stoic and failing miserably. Ducking his head in shame, he refused to meet my gaze. What had Jecht called him? A 'crybaby'? Well, it was no secret that there was much Jecht had never understood. Tidus was a mere boy, and he was losing his whole world, everything that was familiar and secure. Carefully, I clasped his small shoulder, my bare hand monstrous in comparison. 

"There's no shame in tears, boy." And suddenly I found myself with an armful of sobbing, miserable child, wetness soaking fast into the thick fabric of my coat. After a moment, at a bit of a loss, I gathered him up with one arm and sat on the bed, stroking his silken hair as he cried out his sorrow. I was most uncomfortable, but the boy had no one else to console him; his mother had shut out everyone's pain but her own. Gradually, he quieted, his sobs trailing off into small, sad hiccups. 

-------------------------------------- 

He was so big, and warm...solid and real. He let me sit on his lap and cry without telling me to "Shut up and be a man," or "Stop being such a damned crybaby." It was so nice, but I wanted more than anything for Papa to have held me this way, just once...and now he never would, not ever... 

Why did mom have to love _him_ so much? She always loved him better than me...and now he's gone, and she's leaving. 

_But I'm right here--_

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"Better?" I asked, the husky rasp in my voice put there only by the early hour, or so I told myself. 

Tidus looked up, sniffling. Something in his eyes tore at my own deadened heart, as he choked out, "I don't want her to die, too!" 

My body tensed involuntarily as an irrational anger tore through my veins, the taste of pained hapless fury bitter on my tongue. Her death was so pointless. "She won't." I didn't recognize my own voice, iced over with an unfamiliar chill. "I won't let her." _Jecht would never forgive me_. 

Removing the boy from my lap, I stalked out of the room and into Serra's, pulling her ungently out of the bed by the arms. Without care for modesty or easily bruised flesh, my fingers dug mercilessly into her too-cool skin, her nightdress slipping open at the neck as her slack form complied unresistingly. Tidus followed after, staring through the doorway, his small face shocked and a little afraid. Her clouded eyes opened and looked at me, but the pale grey irises didn't see me. I shook her furiously, willing her to snap out of it. It had no effect, and so with calculated force I dealt her an open-handed blow across the face. 

"Serra!" 

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It was the first time that I could remember ever seeing any expression at all on his features. His sudden blazing fury seared through his hands into my arms, his viselike grip biting painfully into my flesh. The near heat of him was almost unbearably hot, making me shiver suddenly with the realization of how cold I was. But I saw it all from far, far away, as if it were happening to someone else. Even his voice raging heatedly at me sounded muted and distant, unintelligible. 

My vague incomprehension further enraged him, and a foul epithet reached my ears as he half-carried, half-dragged me to the window, yanking the curtains back so suddenly that they tore from the wall and flooded the comfortingly dim room with harsh blinding brightness. My child was crying and shouting at him to stop, pulling at his arms with all of the effect of an ant trying to stop a hurricane. I tried to drag my thoughts up from the clinging fog that engulfed them, tried to kick away from the murky underwater depths of my sorrow and swim for the surface. 

"Tidus," was all that I could manage, in a whisper audible only to my own ears. 

The man who held me turned my head forcibly to look out the window into the glaring sunlight. "Look at your garden, Serra. It dies." Roughly, he bore me back around to face the room at my back. "_Look at your son_," he bit out harshly. Tidus was sitting bonelessly on the floor, eyes wide, with a shocked look of fear and abject sorrow on his small face. "He needs a mother." His hold moved to my shoulders as he shifted me to face him, his gaze boring deeply into even my soul. His eye blazed mahogany fire, his features twisted with sorrow and a host of other emotions so tangled with each other that they were impossible to discern. 

"Don't give up and die, Serra! Don't throw your life away, as I did!" 

The normally mirrored russet of his lone eye had gone completely pellucid, revealing the fathomless depths beneath, and I knew from the torment swirling within that the strange words he spoke were entirely true, though the meaning escaped me. 

My voice was rusty from unuse, my throat cracked and painfully dry. But his anguished sorrow prevailed where anger had not. "What do you mean?" 

-------------------------------------- 

Her violet-grey eyes gazed back at me, uncomprehending, waiting for clarification. There was no taking the words back now, and if they could somehow convince her to live I didn't want to. The rest flooded out of me in a low undertone, as I hated even to speak of what I had not yet come to terms with myself. 

"I couldn't take the utter loneliness, the crushing guilt that came from being the only one left standing. For so long, it had been just the three of us against the world, and then it was just me, and their deaths were meaningless. Sin was doomed to return." I closed my eye helplessly as memory overcame me with razor-sharp talons, slicing into my flesh, my heart. "It tore my mind apart, and in my insane fury I sought out Yunalesca the liar, and threw myself at her, lunging at her with all of my strength, but whether it was to kill her or have her kill me I still do not know." 

Taking a deep breath, I fought back to the present and opened my eye to face her. "I did not care about my life anymore, without them, but my death had no meaning, either. Yunalesca survived to deceive those who followed after, and I was unable to move on, bound by the promises I'd made, caught in a hellish limbo between death and life. Unable to live, denied the peace of death. Living and dead and neither." Incredibly, in her face was no skepticism, no doubt of the truth of my words. Her eyes held a world of pitying horror, shimmering with unshed tears. 

"Life is precious, Serra. Jecht would not have wanted you to waste yours." I touched her hair. "_I_ do not want you to waste it. I cannot bear to witness any more pointless death." _Don't make me._

"Auron." My name was a sigh. "You are right. I...will try." She slumped against me, and I froze, unsure of where it might be proper to hold a dead friend's wife. Tentatively, I wrapped my arms around her slender shoulders, swallowing her slight form in my reluctant embrace. Her arms locked around my neck, and finally, for the first time in weeks, she let herself cry. 

I should say now that I meant only to save her; I never meant to fall in love with her. I had thought my heart dead and empty, that all that remained to animate this body were the heavy shackles of Duty that still tethered my weary soul to its flesh. But she, she made me laugh, a man who had not known much laughter even while he lived. She made me care, she made me love, she made me rail again at Fate and in the end, she made me prove that the dead can, in fact, still weep. But I suppose I am getting ahead of myself. 

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End Chapter 5 

~Sango (sango_chan@hotmail.com) 


	7. Honor

Guardian, Chapter 7   
Honor 

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It was still hard, so hard, to wake up in the mornings without him. After I would get up and shower it became tolerable, and at times during the day I almost felt alive again. But the dawning of each day was still hopelessly bleak and melancholy, as my sleeping mind forgot -- ignored? -- reality, and I reached out for him only to find cold, barren sheets. Worse still were the first moments of wakefulness after a night of dreaming about him, when remembrance settled cold upon me like a blanket of falling snow. Then I would cry again, though I forced myself to stop after a little while and stumble to the bathroom, performing my usual ablutions as though they were a ritual against sorrow. And strangely, it usually worked. There was something about the mindless monotony of daily routine that numbed the pain, allowing me to go on living. 

And somehow, that was what I had to do. Auron's words haunted me: I could not forget the simple truth that Jecht would not have wanted me to throw my life away. It had not been conscious, but I knew that I had slowly been courting death of my own accord, and would have soon embraced it, without his intervention. And then there was his pained confession of his own misfortune. How could I see the anguish that he lived with daily, and not try? My willingness to die seemed to degrade all that he and Jecht and Braska freely gave up -- their very _lives_. 

Today was a good morning. Jecht was a comforting weight on my heart, reminding me of his love but bringing only muted pain. I sang a bit as I worked in my garden, coaxing reluctant greenery into bloom. The dreary grey of winter rains had finally lightened into occasional spring showers, and the sun's increasing warmth hinted at the summer soon to come. Wanting to take some beauty indoors with me, I picked a few blossoms that would not be missed, tucking a few into my hair on a whim, saving the rest for a vase. 

I came inside to find that Tidus had "made breakfast", and his earnest little face managed to keep me from sighing as I smiled and thanked him. He'd made quite a mess, but his heart was in the right place. I sent him outside for a bit so that I could clean it up and drink some coffee in peace. I had just set it to brewing when a loud noise against the window startled me, and upon seeing what it was I could not contain the laughter that bubbled up suddenly from my chest. I laughed out loud for the first time in longer than I could remember, and felt again a joy I had almost forgotten. 

-------------------------------------- 

Nestled in the space between wakefulness and slumber, my mind spun indescribable dreams, imbued with the deep ache of hopeless longing. I dreamed of the Farplane, my soul reaching out in sleep to the one place I refused to let my thoughts dwell upon while awake. 

I had caught glimpses of it before, in the Guado homestead: nebulous and airy, eternally still and completely dead quiet. But the pervading silence was comforting, as though the clouded mist gently swallowed all discordant sound, inviting weary souls to let go and take rest in its soft, eternal embrace. 

What would it be like, to sleep on such a cloud -- if they were indeed made of the wonderful fluffy substance imagined by the mind of a child, and not just so much rain biding its time? Here, in this brief limbo I relented enough to let myself wonder-- 

And unbidden, I suddenly found myself there, seated cross-legged on a huge puff of purest white, ghostly tendrils curling up lazily to surround me. The tangible mist glowed softly with a radiance lent by the late sun, warm to the touch and soft as breath. 

With a deep sigh emanating from the core of my soul, I stretched out onto my side, nestling into shifting silk, watching it cover me with protective, snowy arms, and just _letting go_. The unbearable tension of my unnatural, forced existence drained completely away, and finally I knew only peace. 

Briefly. 

The sudden peal of sound was so unnatural and foreign that I was rolling out of bed, reaching for the broadsword that wasn't at my side as it should have been, before I ever came fully awake. But as my hand touched the haft, the innocuousness of the disturbance finally registered as it rang out once more. Mellifluous and sweet, it emanated from the direction of the kitchen only slightly muffled by the walls. 

Serra was laughing. 

She looked up as I entered, still smothering only slightly hysterical giggles behind her hand. She looked to be in much better health, I suddenly realized, though I could now see that it had been a very gradual change. Rose tinted her cheeks, a hint of merriment lit her violet eyes. She wore in her hair a few early blossoms from her garden that must have been procured that morning, judging from the scent they still produced. 

Still incapable of coherent speech, she pointed out the window in response to my somewhat incredulous expression. Crossing the room, I peered out to find a very wet, very miserable cat clinging to the screen by all four clawed feet. 

"Tidus decided to give him a bath--" She gasped out, before a fit of giggles took her again. 

The explanation seemed unnecessary, as the boy had just sprayed the poor creature again with the hose. "I can see that." 

She made a visible attempt to sober herself, though I rather wished she hadn't. My sharp ears still caught the sound of her heartbroken sobbing at times, and I wanted this rare happiness to stay as long as it would. 

I glanced down at the kitchen, my eyes taking note of the rest of my surroundings by long force of habit. I groaned inwardly as I saw the overflowing bowl on the table, brimming with more cereal than ten people could eat, and with what looked to be an entire container of milk poured over it, most of which was now on the floor, together with the orange juice that hadn't quite made it into the glass. 

She smiled again and sighed, knowing that I was well familiar with this particular morning routine. In spite of my many heated attempts to convince Tidus that I did not eat in the mornings, he had made me breakfast as well, often enough. Ignoring the mess, she asked, "Coffee?" 

I sighed irritably and grunted something like an affirmation. Death and Tidus had not made me any more of a morning person. 

She grinned at my expense and moved to get a mug as I sat ungracefully on the one chair not dripping milk. I tried not to watch her, but that was nearly impossible. With the lifting of her depression, her beauty had returned tenfold. I wondered how Jecht could ever have left her for anything, even that absurd sport he adored. Her hair shone with renewed vibrancy, colorful flora tucked girlishly into the nut-brown strands, its greater length leading the eye toward curves that had returned when I wasn't looking. Her wide, wondrous eyes could have captured any man's soul with their ever-shifting hue, from palest amethyst to an almost-black violet. 

And I was no exception. 

A Guardian's reflexes never die, apparently, even though he does. She slipped on the return trip and I caught her without thinking, and the mug, too. Necessity forced me to hold her against me much longer than I would have liked, until she could regain her footing on the slick floor. I cursed Tidus again in my head for the misfortune he continuously brought upon me. Her heady scent suffused my senses, all warm honey and intoxicating spicy ginger. _Oh, what a wonderful friend I am, lusting after the dead friend's wife I'm supposed to be guarding!_

She smiled with grateful innocence as her eyes caught mine, laughing as I released her, thankfully unaware of my inexcusably base thoughts, not noticing as I tried to wipe the feel of her bare silken skin from my fingers. 

"Thank you, Auron, for rescuing me from my clumsiness." She sobered and tilted her head slightly sideways. "But I suppose that is what you are used to, isn't it, Sir Guardian? Rescuing damsels in distress?" The laugh was back in her voice and I realized that she was mocking me, but only a little. I didn't bother to correct her and point out that a Guardian only rescues his Summoner. I wanted only to be as far away as possible. 

I turned to leave, trying to escape and somehow collect my thoughts, but a small hand on my arm stopped me. I tried not to flinch, but she could not have missed my rigid stance. 

Again serious, she asked, "How does one thank a Guardian?" At my silence she plucked a flower from her hair and held it out to me, with a curtsy graceful enough for all that it was obviously long unused. Then she raised her head and winked at me, amused by my discomfiture, and began to clean up Tidus's well-meaning mess. She was humming as I left, completely oblivious to the much greater mess she had made of me. 

I threw myself back on the bed, my thoughts racing wildly. Honor urged me to leave, lest my feelings lead me to betrayal, but I had sworn in blood and tears to guard them! I had no choice; somehow I must stay here and endure. 

The lone flower mocked me with its sculptured, delicate beauty from the night table where I had flung it, reminding me of how it had looked caught in the shining lacework of her hair. I turned my back to it, closing my eyes, and sought escape in the only way permissible... 

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End Chapter 7 

I _promise_ that Sojourn ch.4 is almost done, if any of you have been waiting on it... 


	8. Dreams

Guardian, Chapter 8   
Dreams 

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Days passed, falling seamlessly into one another, a contented blur of time spent learning to find joy in life again. I immersed myself in motherhood, trying to make up for the unfortunate lack of parenting my child had suffered through while his father was absent and his mother lost in selfish grief. Much time was spent on small pleasures to please him: trips to museums and blitzball matches, a party for his birthday, and just snatches of time where I made sure that he had my full attention, to excitedly tell me about those things so important to the mind of a child that often go unnoticed by adults. Auron was always conspicuously absent when people visited the house, and politely refused invitations to join in on our outings. I didn't think much of it; he was pleasant enough in our daily interaction, if miserly with words. He just didn't seem like the tourist type. I got the feeling that he didn't much want to stay here, but was tied to us by promises made and the simple fact that he didn't have anywhere else to go. 

The anniversary of his arrival passed with little fanfare; his unchanged demeanor left me to wonder if he were even aware of the day's significance, and if I were again a bit melancholy, well, no one seemed to notice. I don't think you ever forget, really, not when you lose those who have wrapped themselves so thoroughly in the strings of your heart. But time slowly made the remembrance less painful. I was able to smile again, and to paint and draw, tapping into a soul that had once seemed so empty. I turned the study again into my atelier, filling it with watercolors and oils, letting myself revel in the simple pleasure of stroking bright paint over blank canvas, leaving color where only barren whiteness had been before. 

The one tiny seed of worry in my mind long eluded me with its origins. But one day I finally realized what had been bothering me for months: Auron. Day by day my sorrow had lifted -- never gone, but lightened enough that eventually even I could see the radical difference between my life now and the wreck I had been. But though I finally felt normal again on most days, he seemed as troubled as the day he'd first entered this house, filled with an unrelenting grief and an endless, permanent sorrow. During the day he masked it well behind a cool demeanor of polite formality. But sometimes in the darkest hours of the night I would wake to hear him thrashing in the grip of some painful dream, alternately calling for Jecht or Braska in broken tones. I wanted to comfort him, as anyone with a human heart would have, upon seeing such unfettered anguish. But always the fear of his angry reaction would curb the impulse, and I'd retreat to my room in worried confusion, feeling slightly guilty for being witness to the naked grief he obviously wished to hide. 

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I found myself with little to do other than pace the halls with the boy at my heels, or sit with Serra as she painted for hours on end. For a man like me, who had spent most of his life driven by an impossible mission, constantly traveling and battling and courting danger, the forced inactivity was nearly unbearable. And at the same time...it was a welcome change to escape the shadow cast by Sin upon everything in my homeland. I might even have been happy, if I could have managed even for a second to forget what had become of us, we three who had set out to change the world. 

-------------------------------------- 

That night, like many before it, found me creeping down the hallway, awakened by a stray sound. Expecting to find Auron again in the throes of whatever disturbing dreams troubled him, my heart leapt into my throat, swelling with pity when I realized that the stoic Guardian was sobbing in his sleep, quietly but with unmistakable anguish. 

"--should have been me, Jecht..." he moaned, sleep slurring the words slightly. "Oh Yevon, _why?_" The last tortured syllable broke the spell of guilty indecision that held me helplessly at the threshold. _Propriety and furious Guardians be damned._

I crept slowly to his side and sat there gingerly, though without hesitation. That he had not roused instantly spoke loudly of the dream's merciless hold on him. Before I had time to think better of it, I lifted his head onto my lap and stroked his hair, marveling at the softness of the coal-black strands tangled and torn loose from his warrior's braid. The worst lines of pain eased from his face, causing me to revise my estimation of his age down nearly a decade, guessing it to be nearly the same as mine. His arms came suddenly around me with bruising force, holding me tightly for a long moment. I barely breathed; it had been long since I had been able to offer comfort to another being -- for something more serious than a scraped knee, anyway. My soul reveled in the unexpected joy, glad of the chance to lend what I had only been able to take from others for so long. My lips brushed the top of his head without conscious thought. 

I felt the exact moment that awareness returned to him; he went rigid as a board and captured my offending hands in a grip of iron, thrusting me away with a growling "Serra, what are you _doing_ in here--" 

He broke off abruptly, an expression of regret or uncertainty layered over the anger, and it was then that I realized I was crying. He pulled a handkerchief from the night table silently, all at once the implacable Guardian, as vulnerable as a mountain. He misinterpreted my tears, saying only, "Don't cry, I shouldn't have yelled at you--" 

I dashed his hand and the proffered square of cloth away forcefully. "Don't be stupid! That isn't why--" My voice failed me; I couldn't just go and say that I had been crying for him. 

But my refusal to meet his gaze was enough for him to draw the obvious conclusion. He drew up his arms in anger, crossing them in a furious gesture that somehow looked slightly as though he were holding himself together. In a voice that the chill of steel could not touch, he spat, "I don't need your pity." 

Suddenly angry, I nearly hit him. Instead I retaliated by continuing to invade his personal space, my face scant inches from his, though I had to look up quite a bit more than I would have liked. Jecht had not been quite so...tall. "It isn't pity! Don't you think I know sorrow?? Can you not see that the torment you inflict upon yourself hurts me the way it would have hurt him?? He never wanted that for you!" My hands balled into fists. "Jecht never did _anything_ he didn't want to! If he sacrificed himself it was _willingly_, because he wanted to spare _you_! He loved _you_!" 

I shocked him a bit, I think. The slight widening of eyes looked wildly out of place on his expressionless face. I had never spoken so heatedly about anything to him before. He looked as though he would speak, but my voice broke the silence between us first, a cracked whisper, "Don't you think I ever wondered, Auron? Why he was so sure that _you_ could find your way to us, but so quick to claim that his life meant little because he was stuck in Spira forever?" I closed my eyes at the dawning look of comprehension in his gaze. "I wondered, then, if it was because he loved _you_ more." 

This had obviously never occurred to him. "Serra," he began, but I kept on speaking. 

"But...I know my husband's heart. He loved me and our son with every ounce of his being. I can't know, exactly, how it was for you three on the pilgrimage, but one thing I know without question is that he loved you and Braska nearly as well. He couldn't save Braska, and he couldn't bear losing you as well. He died to keep you safe, and no amount of persuasion could have swayed him, even if you'd had a million years. But you didn't have years, did you?" I continued softly. "There was no time, was there?" 

"No time," he echoed, bowing his head, so faintly I first thought I'd imagined it. 

-------------------------------------- 

She looked down, twisting her hands into the fabric of his discarded coat as he spoke. _Oh, Auron._

Bright crimson blossomed on the back of one slim hand, stark against the skin blanched white from the force of her grip, and just as the first hot droplet of red registered in her mind, another joined it, trailing between her fingers over into the palm. Opening the hand in disconcerted wonder, she glanced up and gasped. 

At her stricken expression of mingled horror and compassion, he realized that his control over this corporeal form had slipped, the gaping wound across his face again fresh and bleeding in echoing response to the twin rend he had again torn open in his soul. In less than a breath, he had gathered his emotions to him once more, concealing them in his deepest mental recesses, the long scar again the smooth raised flesh of a wound long healed. 

She blinked, uncertain, unnerved by the sight of such a violent wound, it's subsequent disappearance, and the sudden glacial coldness of the face across from hers, its mahogany eye shadowed and hostile as it gazed out the moonlit window. But the vermillion of his blood still dried slowly in her cupped hand. 

_Did the dead bleed, then?_

She wanted to reach out for him, and he must have sensed that, because without turning his head, he said, "Just leave, Serra. There is nothing you can do here." 

Resigned, she silently retreated to the door. Pushing him further tonight seemed cruel and would accomplish nothing. But, she could almost tangibly feel Jecht's presence wanting her to do _something_ for his friend...she couldn't give up... 

"Do you want some tea?" The innocuous question rang non sequitur into the silence, surprising them both. Serra cursed herself for a fool. _Tea?_

Taken off guard, he automatically began a cold refusal. "No, thank you--" and then paused as if considering. He was in no hurry to sleep again, and there was something about a simple, mundane cup of tea that was infinitely appealing. He sighed as if in weary capitulation. "Yes, actually. Tea would be fine." 

He stalked down the hallway behind her, his unnaturally silent gait unnerving her in the darkness. She boiled water and steeped tea in a kitchen silent as a tomb, lit only by the moon and a very small lamp. He sat with his back to her, accepting the cup at the last with an absent thanks. 

He stared morosely into his tea, obviously unwilling to talk further. She realized suddenly that for a rare moment he wore neither glasses nor collar, and it was a testament to his troubled state of mind that he seemed not to have noticed the lack. His scar was nearly painful to look at, though it could not hide the chiseled beauty of his face, patrician mouth slightly full of bottom lip, arched eyebrows and long black lashes shadowing his remaining eye. His hair was a soft fall of liquid night running in a long tail down his back, absorbing all of the light that touched it, throwing none back. 

He jerked as though touched with a live wire when her small hand traced the scar. 

She withdrew immediately in alarm. "I'm sorry, did I hurt you?" 

"No." He paused. "Please don't do that again," he continued in a low voice, unconsciously turning his head in profile, concealing the scar in shadow. Very obviously having realized that most of his usual concealing attire lay in the other room. 

"No, don't..." She caught his hand swiftly, spilling hot tea over the brim, over his fingers and onto the table. 

He hissed slightly in pain, and she cursed. She dabbed at his hand with a napkin, saying hurriedly, "I'm so sorry...would you like some ice or something?" 

He did not seem to hear her, so still and unresponsive was he. He didn't seem even to breathe. The skin didn't appear to be scalded, so she let it drop. Instead, she pressed his large hand between her own, exploring the palm unfamiliarly callused from years of swordsmanship. Taking a deep breath, she said, "You're beautiful, Auron. Even such a scar cannot hide it." 

He snorted, very softly, finally extricating his hand from her grasp. 

She continued on anyway, before he could leave. "I wish that you did not feel the need to wear all of that around us, indoors. It can't be comfortable. Tidus thinks that the sun rises and sets with you...and can you not tell that I like your face well enough? It is the face of a man who died trying to avenge his friends, who traveled vast distances to fulfill a promise. The face of the man who gave my life back to me." 

He was visibly unconvinced. 

She swallowed and finished softly, "But were it none of those things, I still would not find it unpleasant to look upon." 

Her frank honesty left no room for him to doubt her words. They rang true as no well-meaning lie could, and he soundly cursed the unfaithful part of himself that was suddenly absurdly glad. 

Serra only hoped that the low light hid the color that crept into her cheeks. What was wrong with her? Surely telling her husband's friend that she found him pleasing to look at was no reason to blush like a schoolgirl... 

--------------------------------------   
End Chapter 8 


	9. Contentment

Guardian, Chapter 9   
Contentment 

-------------------------------------- 

_There used to be a greying tower alone on the sea   
You became the light on the dark side of me..._

-------------------------------------- 

Looking at her a long moment, he found no trace of guile in his study of her face. In the darkness his eyes missed any roseate blush that may have touched the pale skin. Her lips curved in a small smile that said she was aware of the scrutiny and minded not, as she wanted him to know she had spoken in earnest. 

Finally deciding that her statement meant only what it said, he unexpectedly felt _something_ on his heart ease, some hidden knot of tension in his chest uncoil. Honored Guardian or no, he had seen countless shocked glances of pity or horror over the course of his long quest to find Jecht, though they were quickly mastered and hidden away. Their parents might have deemed his disfigurement a badge of honor won 'saving the world from Sin' -- Ha! -- but children too young to understand still turned their frightened faces into their mothers' skirts as he passed. It had been a long road. 

He may have been able to remove the scar, had he wanted; his mind was, after all, the only force binding the elements of his body together. But it seemed a betrayal to those who had given up far more than vanity, and aside even from that, he was fairly certain that it would only reappear. It was part of who he was, now. Yunalesca's blow had bitten deep through flesh and bone, cleaving into soul. 

He set the empty cup down on the table and rose. "Thank you," was all he said in parting, and whether for the tea, or something else, she could not tell. 

-------------------------------------- 

After that night, he slowly started to leave all of the heavy clothing behind as he went around the house, until finally he only wore it when he left the property, a rare occurrence. If it were difficult for him at first he gave no sign of it, and I was pleased. It had pained me that one my husband had loved so dearly, who had done so much for us, had felt the need to fortify himself behind those barriers of cloth and lens. 

There was a new, companionable ease between us: a comfortable closeness as between longtime friends, though we had known each other only a while. We sat together for long periods of time in silence, usually he with a book and I with my paints, without feeling that desperate need to fill the quiet void with meaningless, nervous chatter. When we did talk, I felt as though he listened to me as few had done before. I talked about Jecht and my life before he entered it, and Auron spoke with ill-concealed longing about the land of his birth, a lush and green place that I longed to see. 

He even sat tolerantly through the daytime programming I adored, only now and then raising a sardonic eyebrow over the spine of his book. Today, he sprawled out on the couch doing just that, as I sat cross-legged on the floor, watching with rapt attention as the characters played through their shallow lives. It was pointless, overly dramatic, and predictable, but I was hooked anyway. 

"Ah!" I squealed. "He finally proposed!" 

I could almost hear him rolling his eyes. "Isn't there a wedding just about every week on that show?" 

"No!" I said, indignant. "Well, maybe. But, this is different, they are just meant for each other--" 

"Didn't he sleep with her best friend last week? And isn't she having someone else's baby?" he asked, in bored tones. 

My jaw dropped, and I half-turned to face him. "You were paying attention to that?" 

He looked affronted. "Unfortunately. You have the strangest tastes. Take this, for example..." He gestured to the book in his hand. 

My cheeks burst into flame when I saw not the bound leather of the classic literature he had until now been devouring, but the cover of a really tawdry romance novel. "Where did you get--" 

He continued on in disbelief, an odd glint of mischief in his eye. "Is this flowery, suspended reality what women really _want_?" He read with mock emphasis, "Gavin bore her back into the grass, verdant green against the fiery red hair tumbling in shimmering waves beneath her, his hands struggling to liberate the pearly twin mounds from her bodice even as his tongue plundered the honeyed depths of her mouth--" 

"Auron!" I snatched the book out of his hands, and he gave me a wicked, amused, half-grin. 

Mercilessly, he kept teasing me, pointing at the cover. "And what is that he is supposed to be wearing? I must tell you that no man would ever, on pain of death, wear leathers as tight as that, or shirts that expose their chest hair nearly to the navel. No man who likes _women_, anyway." 

I glared at him. "He's dashing and adventurous." 

"Or a pirate," he finished. 

I couldn't help it; I laughed, and he made an amused sound. 

"You'd better get back to your show," he admonished. "They'll both be married to someone else tomorrow." 

-------------------------------------- 

Her laugh was exquisite. I found myself willing to say anything, even at my own expense, to hear it. It seemed a crime that the world had nearly lost that sound forever. I treasured each moment we spent during that time, content simply to be in each other's company. If I could not have her the way that I wanted, it was at least balm to my wounded heart to have the unlikely friendship that we'd forged. 

After living so long the solitary life of a warrior-monk, and then as a journeying Guardian, it was also an unexpected pleasure to suddenly find myself part of what could almost be called a family. I discovered beauty in the mundane, the predictable routine of waking and sleeping, taking meals together. Vast new worlds lay dormant between the covers of books that I had never had time to explore; in Spira there had always been more imminent tasks to attend. I still missed home, but if there were little of nature here to dwell in, at least the same sun and stars passed overhead, in their familiar bright glory. 

Tidus also gave more to me than ever I gave to him. His enthusiasm was infectious, even if his innocent optimism grated on nerves turned cynical by the ravages of time. Faithful to a fault, he was always excited to see me, even when I lost my patience and snapped at him to leave off bothering me. Even the cat had taken to me, deciding that my bed was the most comfortable place for a feline to spend the night, being gracious enough to share it with me if I didn't mind sharing the pillow. I did, and after a few restless nights I fetched the damnable thing its own pillow, a compromise which suited us both. Dreams rarely troubled me, and for the first time in a long while, even with the repressed longing in my heart, I was content. I felt alive. 

I would often think later that things might have been all right, could they just have stayed the way they were. But I knew also that this was impossible; whether constrained by fate or merely by the unopposable persistence of love denied, the rest of the story was inevitable. 

--------------------------------------   
End Chapter 9 

A bit short, I know, but the better part of the next four chapters is already written; they should be up in short order. At least expect one more this weekend! And I promise, it's going to get more interesting shortly ;) 

~Sango 


	10. Games

Guardian, Chapter 10   
Games 

-------------------------------------- 

Between Tidus and that cat, I was destined never to sleep again. The endlessly irritating ball of fur refused to sleep curled up on its own pillow anymore, instead preferring to nestle under my chin when it lost interest in the sport of chasing my toes as they shifted underneath the sheets. The purring was pleasant enough, if it had not managed to lick my face unpleasantly with the sandpapery tongue every time I was about to fall off of the edge of awareness into true slumber. I would have shut it out of the room, and had indeed often tried, but it meowed right outside the door as though being slowly dismembered, tail first, until I capitulated and let it back in. It would finally deign to curl up and sleep sometime right before dawn, which gave me nearly an hour until Tidus came lumbering in. 

This morning was no exception, though I had nearly let myself hope that the boy might have at last discovered the joys of sleeping in. The door flung open, banging against the tiny spring that tried admirably to protect the walls from this child. 

"Auron!" 

I'd long ago given up on pretending to be asleep. I tried the direct approach. "Go away, Tidus." 

He wasn't buying it. "You promised to train me today!" 

And a more regrettable promise had never been made. It had been a last-ditch attempt to shut the boy up about wanting to learn the technical forms of sword fighting that I still practiced outside almost daily. I couldn't bring myself to stop, however useless the skill might be in this world. It was one last tie to the man I had been, and I'd done so nearly every day of my life since I entered the monastery so long ago. There was no way I was going to let him touch an edged weapon, so out of exasperation I finally offered to teach him some simple hand-to-hand. I'd half-hoped Serra would object, but she had not minded. 

My days of rising before the sun were over, or so I thought back then. "The sun is barely in the sky, boy. Get out of here and don't come back for at least an hour, or there won't _be_ any training," I grumbled unpleasantly. 

He gave a small growl of frustration, and then there was no doubting the consanguineous ties between this child and Jecht as he said. "You _never_ want to have fun, Auron!" 

Behind closed eyelids, I was suddenly transported back to another life, or perhaps only two years ago, facing down an unkempt ruffian with his hands on his hips, an indolent smirk ill-concealed among the stubble as he taunted, "Lighten up and live a little, Auron! You're such a stiff!" 

My only reply then had been a disdainful glance down my nose at him -- he hated that, having to look up at me -- and a calm, "You are an ill-mannered pig who wouldn't know tact or decency if it bit you on the ass..." 

I forget now what it was he'd wanted the three of us to do, but it was something that took us away from the journey at hand, and as much as I dreaded the outcome I'd thought I understood, the seriousness of the task weighed on me, and delays seemed foolish. Lives rested upon our diligence. 

I glared at him, and he made a rude gesture in return. "Must you always behave so abysmally?" I cried. "Braska-sama--" 

"--should be allowed to enjoy this journey," he finished for me, the infuriating grin sliding like water from his face. For once it was plain to see that I grated on him as much as he did me. 

This was no summer outing, and I was tired of him acting like a child on one. "You demean Braska-sama and his pilgrimage with your total lack of regard," I said flatly. 

His response was more heated. "You act as though it were a funeral march!" 

Enough. Attempting to mask the pain of the words by encasing them in ice, I clipped, "Our duty in this is to protect him until the end, when he means to _sacrifice_ himself to save us all!" 

If I'd meant to shock him, I was sorely disappointed. Instead, I was the one who stood amazed at the foreign expression of sorrowful understanding his features settled into. "I know, Auron," was all he said, quietly. "Braska told me." He ran a hand through messily unkempt hair, impossibly managing to make it look even wilder. "Something in all of this didn't ring true to me, and I asked him what the catch was." 

In a muted tone I wouldn't have thought him capable of, he continued, "Don't you think, Auron, that in addition to guarding him through this quest, we should also try to cram as much happiness into it as possible? Your refusal to stop being miserable pains him. He will not change his course, though for you, he almost would." 

I was stunned by the open regard he held for Braska. The softness strange in his voice did not hide the bitterness when he spoke next. "Time with those you love is precious, you great fool, and should never be wasted." 

I suddenly felt a startling pity for this uncouth, inconsiderate boor, who had lost both his world and his family in a day. Bowing my head in defeat, I conceded to his request for whatever had begun the whole altercation. He grasped my shoulder and squeezed in an almost-painful gesture of companionship, and I nearly smiled. From then on I think we understood each other, and fought mostly in jest. At some point I forgot that my Summoner and I had ever traveled without him, and loved him almost as dearly. I wish I had said so, even once. But men like us just did not give voice to those things. 

Cracking open my eye, I saw his son's crestfallen expression, and made an attempt to please him and buy another fifteen minutes of sleep at the same time. In the least irritated voice I could manage, I sighed, "Why don't you go make us breakfast?" 

-------------------------------------- 

It was an idyllic late-summer day, when just enough breeze floats by to keep you from sweltering as you bask in the last of the golden summer sun. Auron had finally dragged Tidus outside to "wear the boy out", alternately running him around with the blitzball and making him practice the forms he had started learning from the warrior-priest. I followed after, both to tend my garden and protect it from stray sphere shots. 

I finished watering and pruning long before they tired of their game, so I sat out in a chair near the water to watch. It was fascinating, how the normally somber Guardian grew almost lighthearted as he played with my son, now and then a small smile flittering across his features. If it were only for an instant, it still was a hundred times more often than I ever saw him smile otherwise. If Tidus were being more outrageously silly than usual, the older man even sometimes laughed: a low, throaty chuckle. Tidus's childish exuberance and affection must have slowly healed something in Auron's tattered soul. 

Growing bored with my role as a spectator, I decided that they were having entirely too much fun to leave me out. I grinned impishly; they looked _much_ too hot... 

I walked casually over to the hose, and turned it on them full blast, laughing devilishly. 

Tidus shrieked, "Mom!" while Auron looked momentarily stunned, albeit only for an instant. Then an expression of mock ferocity graced his features, and he darted toward me more quickly than a man that size had any right. I squealed in terror, dropping the hose in my haste to escape. 

He deftly caught the hose one-handed before it touched the ground, snatching my arm firmly with the other. I struggled futilely, somewhat transfixed by the unbridled merriment I had never seen before in his gaze. "I think Madam needs a drink," he said, and turned the hose into my face. 

I yowled in mock-anger, spluttering. He released me, and unfortunately for him he was standing near the water's edge. Unmercifully, I rushed him and with a shoulder to the gut sent him sprawling into the bay. Unfortunately for me, his unfairly honed reflexes kicked in as soon as he saw me brace to charge him, and he pulled me in along with him. 

When we surfaced, I heard him laugh out loud for the first time; it was a full, joyous sound, untainted by any sorrow. We were both grinning like fools, treading water less than a yard apart. A smile was such a beautiful thing on his face. For an instant I thought he meant to grab me, probably to try and dunk my head underwater as Jecht had tried -- I was nearly as agile as my husband in the water, and he didn't succeed often -- and then I wondered why I had thought that, because he hadn't moved at all, though my heart still raced expectantly. 

Disappointed for no reason I could name, I said, "We should probably get out and go dry off, it's nearly time for lunch..." 

His expression sobered, and he drew a wet tendril of hair out of my face. "As you say," he replied. 

The water around me seemed suddenly charged with something, some new element that frightened me with its thrill. I quickly climbed out of the water and turned away, confused. 

I heard him climb up behind me, but he said nothing more to me, only shouting at Tidus to stop dripping on his sword as the boy had taken advantage of Auron's absence to examine the forbidden object in more detail. I nearly ran inside, though why, I couldn't say. 

-------------------------------------- 

One gesture can change everything in a moment, turning everything you know to be true on its head in the blink of an eye. The shining lock of dark, wet hair called out to me to move it from where it lay concealing the beauty of the pale cheek beneath. And in the space of a breath, or the pause between two beats of her heart, the unassuming gesture suddenly blossomed beyond its intention -- her pupils dilated, swallowing up the abruptly darker violet swimming around them, lips parting slightly as she leaned into the touch, most surely unaware of the action. I could not breathe for the look in her eyes, but before I could gain any insight from their study she suddenly sprang away in a great deluge of water, exiting the sea with the ease of one long used to the motion. 

She was gorgeous even soaking wet -- undeniably so, as I could not help but noticing the sodden clothing clinging to every swell and hollow as she climbed out with her back to me. I had it left in me to be remotely glad of the ocean's chill, darkly amused by the body that refused to believe it was dead. 

--------------------------------------   
End Chapter 10 


	11. Awakening

Guardian, Chapter 11   
Awakening 

-------------------------------------- 

_My hands will adore you   
Through all darkness, and they will   
Lay you out in moonlight..._

-------------------------------------- 

The one incongruous spot of color in the slowly dimming room was the scarlet coat draped casually over a chair, the only item not folded neatly or otherwise arranged in perfect order. There could be no doubt that the room's occupant had once been in the military, I observed, coming in to strip and launder the bedding. I no longer found cleaning to be such an insurmountable task. I almost enjoyed it; the mundane chores seemed less like drudgery and more of an affirmation of life -- things needed to be cleaned, used, and then cleaned again, like my paint-spattered shirts and Tidus's sopping wet blitz uniform. Life was about getting things dirty. 

It also helped that Auron had no aversion to doing things around the house, after being shown the common use of various pieces of household technology. He always looked faintly as though lightning would strike him down for some mortal sin the first time he touched something new, though I pretended not to notice after the furious scowl he'd given me when I once mentioned it. It had been rather funny at first, seeing a man vacuum -- Jecht _abhorred_ cleaning, we'd always hired maids -- but he looked as graceful and serious doing that as when he ran through the deadly-looking forms of battle with his sword in the courtyard. 

He was there now, I saw through the window, though not with the sword. Instead he stood with Tidus in the last rays of slanting amber sunlight, where they would train until the indigo cloak of twilight fell fully across the early autumn sky. The two of them made an impressive pair; the clean lines of precise form moved in tandem as they flowed through one of the many techniques Auron had been teaching my son. The Guardian had confessed, when the boy was safely out of earshot, that Tidus was an exceptionally quick study when he could be persuaded to concentrate. Unsurprisingly, it was also a challenge to get him to focus. 

Today, however, Auron had his full attention. It was the first day in nearly a week that he'd been allowed outside to practice, as he'd been sick for days with a nasty stomach virus. Another day of rest was probably in order, but neither I nor Auron had the patience to otherwise entertain him, it being nearly impossible to channel all of his restless energy into an activity that could be done abed. He seemed to be doing fine, and I knew Auron wouldn't press him too hard. 

I was not aware, for a long time, of how my eyes began increasingly to follow the older man and not the boy. I only knew that every sleek line of his body radiated power, as he moved in a way that could almost be called dancing -- if the word could somehow be altered to keep all of the grace and none of the frivolity that it implied. 

The sun had nearly set; only a fingertip of ruby sun gleamed brightly upon the horizon. Auron stood facing me, watching Tidus sternly with arms crossed as the child performed the kata again on his own. In the gloaming, the black of his hair drank up the light greedily, teeth flashing unnaturally white against the gloom in a quick, rare smile as the boy finished. His shirtless form faintly glowed a dusky bronze, still glistening from the sweat of his own earlier workout. 

His gaze lifted suddenly to catch mine, the smile reappearing briefly as he nodded recognition at me. The fire-lit mahogany seemed to arc through the air, piercing my breast and making me gasp painfully. 

He was suddenly unearthly, inhumanly beautiful: a wayward demi-god wandering the sublunary plane to treat with mortal men. Unaware of his own allure, he turned then away, breaking eye contact and with it the spell that held me immobile. The strength of my inexplicable reaction made me stagger, falling against the bed, throwing my arms out blindly to keep from falling. 

Am I attracted to Auron? 

Am I _falling in love with him?_

My hands twisted into the sheets as they balled into fists, and I sat down heavily on the mattress, as one slapped in the face with the ungentle hand of sudden realization. There was no denying the answer to the first question; the aftermath of quicksilver heat racing through my veins made any lie impossible. A hundred small thoughts and glances over the past few months suddenly became incontrovertible evidence. Yes, in a purely physical way, I was. Not only that, I supposed: he was unfailingly kind, patient with Tidus, and even had a wicked sense of humor hidden away somewhere. He was the steadying rock that Jecht never had been -- but oh God, it was too soon, I wasn't ready-- 

_Jecht..._

I might have sat there numbly for hours, if I hadn't heard Tidus slamming the door as they came in for dinner. My head was spinning, and my stomach turning along with it. I wanted nothing more than to retreat to my room and lie down, but I couldn't seem to make myself move. The sudden noise startled me into action; I didn't want to talk to anyone. I left a hastily scribbled note in the kitchen and fled, undoubtedly leaving Auron to wonder why I had come in and torn up his bed only to leave the sheets crumpled up in the middle of the floor. 

-------------------------------------- 

Tidus was much bigger, Auron noticed absently, than the last time he'd carried the boy to bed like this. It was amazing, how children grew. Being dead and unchanging himself, and in such a strange environment, Auron had completely lost track of time's passing. It still felt sometimes as though very little had passed since his arrival, so these new changes in Tidus were rather a shock. His limbs were longer, and though he was still rather gangly, the time spent outside with Auron had put a bit of muscle on him. The nearly cherubic expression on his sleeping face was still the same though, as was the devilish smile he wore when awake. 

Barely over his bout with 'the flu' as Serra had called it, the day's activities had well and truly worn him out, and Auron had felt a bit remorseful about working him so hard when the boy nodded off and nearly planted his face in his mostly-uneaten pizza. They would take it easier tomorrow. The boy needed a day off. 

On the return trip to the living room he paused involuntarily in front of Serra's door. Dinner had been a quiet affair, with her teasing laughter absent and Tidus's endless chatter subverted by sheer weariness. _Have I grown so used to her?_

Nothing ever diminished her beauty to him. Even earlier this evening, disheveled and with her arms full of laundry, he had nearly felt his bones melt from her smile. _Does she know? Can she see how she affects me, the way I have to force aside the gaze that wants only to drink in forever the sight of her?_

He shifted his weight as if to proceed back down the hall, but didn't. It wasn't like her to just seclude herself away like she had done tonight, not since her initial battle with depression and grief. When they'd come inside all they found was a terse note about going to bed with a headache, suggesting that they order in for dinner tonight. It sounded innocuous enough, but some unease he couldn't name tripped his awareness, setting him on edge with a pervasive feeling of wrongness. She had also left all of his bedding piled on the floor, as though whatever ailed her had come on suddenly. 

He heard the soft spray of the shower running in the background, so she must not have been feeling that bad, he supposed. He could probably use one himself. He turned to throw the rest of the pizza in the fridge and do just that when he heard the halting sound of wet flesh skidding across porcelain, followed by a sickening thud. Running back to the door, he tore it open wide enough to stick his head in warily. 

"Serra?" 

No answer. "Serra, are you all right??" 

When nothing but running water answered him, he ran through the room and the doorway to the bathroom. The startling bloom of crimson on white caught his eye first, and he went to her without further hesitation for modesty or propriety. She lay sprawled face-down and unmoving on the tiled floor of the shower. Her small form stayed completely slack as he worriedly turned her over. The continuous spray of water washed the trickle of blood from her lip, sending a rivulet of pale rose coursing away into the drain. Probing her head gently with his fingers, he found a large lump under the hair, swollen but not serious. She stirred in his arms, squinting against the water dripping directly into her face. 

"Auron?" she asked groggily. Then her eyes widened a bit, realizing just where she was, and where her clothes weren't. 

He shut off the spray with one hand and grabbed the nearest towel to wrap around her. She tried to sit up and do it herself, but his gruff voice stopped her. "Stop, Serra. Not so quickly." 

Thankfully, the large towel covered everything. If Auron felt the temptation to look he hid it well. _Of course, he would have seen everything when he came in, anyway..._ But he looked, as almost always, utterly composed, though his tone was worried. 

He sat back on his heels, draping her across his knees, paying no mind to the water soaking through his trousers as he examined the cut on her lower lip. For his part, it had been easy to forget her nakedness in his worry for her, but now fought not to remember just how very long it had been since he'd seen so much of a woman. "What happened?" 

"I don't know...I was standing, and then I wasn't. It was very hot..." she trailed off. 

He frowned. She was shivering, even in the steam, and the skin beneath his hands that should have been cool from the water still beading on it was instead burning hot. He put his hand to her forehead. "You're feverish." 

Serra closed her eyes when he touched her, feeling suddenly lost, the gentle touch strongly invoking a repressed longing to just be taken care of. If his fingers lingered briefly, she did not notice. 

Abruptly an overwhelming wave of illness washed over her. "Auron, let go. I'm going to throw up." She stumbled to the toilet and did so, mortified by his presence. But he moved to her side without comment, his strong arms supporting her and holding the net of wet hair out of her face. Finally the spasms eased, and she lay her leaden head on her arms, feeling weak as a day-old kitten. 

She heard him leave and come back, felt the slick coolness of the water glass he pressed into her hand. "Your shower's over, I think. Let's get you in bed." She opened her eyes and tried to rise, but couldn't, too disoriented to keep her balance. 

He caught her easily, though he nearly lost the towel in the process. "Here, I'll carry you. Just, ah, hold the towel." 

Held tightly against his chest, his arms securely around her, she fought the urge to weep and lost. Turning her head into his shirt she cried silently, overcome with want for Jecht, who had always been the one to hold her before, but also shamed by how well Auron's embrace, however practical, seemed to fit comfortingly around her. By the thrill she felt, even now, at the touch of his bare arms against her skin. 

How she missed being held like this... 

He set her down amid the pillows, fetching a towel for her hair without being asked, and a shirt for her to change into as well. She managed to do that on her own when he went to the kitchen to get ice for her head. It wasn't so bad, being taken care of. She could close her eyes with him there and feel safe, wrapped in the comfort of his presence, knowing that nothing could harm her while he was near. Wasn't that what Jecht had asked of him? Was it so wrong to feel the way she did about him? 

How could she not? 

--------------------------------------   
End Chapter 11 

Song quote by Jewel. Next chapter is nearly done as well. 


	12. Want

Guardian, Chapter 12   
Want 

-------------------------------------- 

_Listen as the wind blows from across the great divide   
voices trapped in yearning, memories trapped in time   
the night is my companion, and solitude my guide   
would I spend forever here and not be satisfied? _

...and I would be the one   
to hold you down   
kiss you so hard   
I'll take your breath away   
and after, I'd wipe away the tears   
just close your eyes dear... 

-------------------------------------- 

Despite Serra's embarrassed protests, I stayed by her side most of that night, ostensibly under the pretense of watching for symptoms of concussion and making sure that she didn't pass out again on the way to the bathroom. But the truth of it was, I was frightened. The image of her blood on the tile would not leave me, and I was relentlessly assailed by the knowledge of how much worse things could have been, had she fallen at a different angle, or hit something edged on the way down. Not my fault, I knew, but still I felt that I had nearly betrayed Jecht's trust in me and let her come to harm. For my own peace of mind, I wanted her where I could see her. 

Unfortunately for her, she was plagued by nausea until the early hours, until finally there was nothing left to lose. She couldn't even keep water down, and I worried a bit about dehydration. But finally, just before dawn, she managed a few sips before falling into exhausted slumber, and I slumped back into the chair and allowed my eyes to close briefly in the hope that she'd finally be able to rest. The chair I sat in was _not_ designed to encourage sleep, so I very much doubted that I'd be so lucky. 

-------------------------------------- 

Fighting my way slowly out of sleep, I pried open heavy eyelids reluctantly. I didn't much want to be awake, since that meant feeling horrible and likely throwing up again, but I couldn't sleep any longer for the unbearable dryness in my throat. Scrabbling clumsily for the glass on the nightstand, I managed to drink most of it without spilling, not caring if it came right back up again as long as the painful parched feeling went away. The morning was late; Tidus must have still been feeling under the weather himself if he hadn't yet disturbed us at this hour. 

Rolling back over, I caught a quick glimpse of Auron before I drifted off again, and had to smile. He looked thoroughly uncomfortable in the chair he'd chosen to sleep in, feet propped up elegantly on the edge of the mattress, but he was out cold. Stubborn wasn't quite a strong enough word to describe him. I'd tried to tell him to go to bed, that I'd be all right, but he had staunchly refused. Truthfully, I didn't mind at all. The last time I could remember being this sick, Jecht had been away with the team. I don't think I'd felt so completely taken care of since I'd been ill as a child, with my mother bringing me the stereotypical weak tea and dry toast. It was nice for once to give up the role of adult, to let someone else worry about things. With Auron, I didn't have to worry about anything. 

He stirred uneasily, features settling into a distraught frown. Apparently he still dreamed of haunts I had thought long gone. I can't explain the tenderness I felt toward him right then; the closest I can come is to say that he had done so much for me that I wished nothing would ever hurt him so again. Yawning, I felt unrelenting oblivion dragging me under like an ocean riptide sucking at my toes, but I reached out the one arm I had the strength left to move, and placed my hand on his. He quieted at the touch, fingers closing over mine, and I slept. 

-------------------------------------- 

Lying in bed, or propped up on the living room couch, I had more time than I would have liked to examine my heart and my motives. To ask myself the questions I might rather have avoided. After a lot of painful introspection, I began to realize that maybe my attraction to him was not so horrible as all that. Perhaps it had even been inevitable. Jecht wasn't coming back. I hadn't chosen to leave him, and his death had hurt me deeply. I knew that he would not have wanted me to spend the rest of my life alone; he would have wanted me to find happiness where I might. Auron's words rang true; Jecht had not wanted my life to end with his. 

Choosing his best friend might have been a betrayal, I knew -- but at the same time, was it? If Jecht had been forced to see me with another man, would he not have chosen one he loved as well? I would never know, certainly...but regardless, what could I do? I could not change what I felt. Jecht had been the wind, an untamed zephyr blowing in and out of my life, sweeping me off of my feet and fanning desire into flame. Auron was the silent earth, steadying and strong, a solid presence whose support never waned. He was always there, though he made no demands on me, asked me for nothing. So different, yet I loved them both. 

He skillfully walked the fine line between being attentive and cloying, as I recovered. He never coddled me, but just occasionally brought hot tea, or a book for me to read when I grew unbearably tired of staring at the walls. Once it had been a shockingly smutty romance, which I'd nearly chucked at his head in mock outrage. 

By the time I felt well enough to pry myself off of the couch, I was thoroughly smitten. I was also both happy and dismayed, for I was no longer the innocent girl I had been the first time I fell in love. I knew how to read a man, to decipher the enigmatic glow that alights in his eye when he imagines you clad only in skin. Even if the tight set of his mouth betrays that he is doing his best not to. 

Jecht had been fiery and passionate, wearing every emotion plainly on his face, easy to read once first I learned how. Auron was more of a challenge, each expression veiled and muted, but in the end he was also only a man. He might skillfully keep the want from his face, but he could not hide the hitch in his breath when I came too near, nor did he know that his obvious effort to touch me as little as possible spoke loudly of how much he wanted to. His teasing demeanor never altered, but the incidental touching of knees or elbows as we sat together watching movies with Tidus, or the brushing of hands passing food across the table at dinner, all of it was absent. Indeed, he never sat next to me if he could help it. 

I'm ashamed to admit that I teased him at first, touching him when he would not touch me: a light hand on his arm when we talked, or letting my hair brush his shoulder when I leaned close to him, as though I did not realize that it did so. Sometimes I would stretch just so, in his line of sight, a perfectly innocent arching of spine as I rubbed kinks out of my back after sitting in one position too long. I meant no cruelty -- I simply had to _know_. I had to know what he felt, if he wanted me as I wanted him, before I made a complete fool out of myself. Falling in love once doesn't make you immune to the fear of being hurt a second time. 

Unfortunately, I found the answer that I wanted, but also an obstacle I knew not how to pass. He cared for me as much as I could have wished, but he loved also my husband, and that loyalty to him, the unspoken code between men, forbade us ever being more than we were now. So I said nothing. 

I could have pressed him, I knew. I could have tempted him beyond what he could bear, come to him in the dark of night and offered what he would not have been able to refuse. But to break his honor would be to break him, and I loved him too well for that. So instead I lingered in happy misery, content in knowing that I was loved and no longer lonely, but still unfulfilled. 

-------------------------------------- 

It still amazed me, how quickly he had taught himself to read once I had shown him the rudiments and given him the dictionary. Computers still fazed him a bit, but he used them well enough. This night, Tidus long asleep, we both sat reading in the dimly lit room, the simulated fire glowing merrily on the fireplace holoscreen. He found no end of amusement from that -- 'How utterly useless!' he'd laughed. But the crackle of burning logs and the comforting glow of lambent flame were so cozy; was it my fault Zanarkand was so tropical that a real fireplace had been out of the question? It had been another one of Jecht's presents to his shamelessly spoiled wife in another lifetime. We had always had more money than sense, as famous as he was, being one of the highest-paid players in the league. Enough to sustain us even now for quite some time, if we were frugal. I hoped to sell some paintings eventually, for supplemental income. It was funny, how 'us' now automatically included Auron, in my mind. 

I could not help glancing over my book at him yet again, at the way the light from the reading lamp poured over his shoulders in the darkness, gilding his perfect silhouette into lines of abstract gold and shadow. Even the motion of his hand lifting to move a bothersome lock of hair from his eyes was artful. I wanted to cast my reading aside and crawl across the room with the intention of distracting him most unchastely from his perusal of classic literature... 

He looked up and caught my gaze unexpectedly, and whatever he saw there seemed to startle him. He recovered quickly as always, leaving me to wonder if my eyes only toyed with me in the dark. _Had he guessed?_ I could not tell. He only stood and politely excused himself to retire to his room, pleading the late hour. 

-------------------------------------- 

She had been looking at me like a starving panther might have regarded a steak. Panic broke in me then; I had thought it bad enough to want her, knowing that my love would always be unrequited and impossible to acknowledge. I had never imagined how much worse things would be, should she one day grow more than merely fond of me. How could I have let this happen? How can I let her love me, when Jecht loses himself a little more each day to the consuming madness of Sin? How can I love her openly, when he suffers so? I can't -- but how also can I reject her? How can I bear to hurt her, when she has done only what I have told her she must: accepted his death and moved on with her life? I can't lie...there is no way that I can look in her eyes and tell her that I'm not in love with her. And I can't tell her about Jecht, _I can't._ It would crush the life out of her, this time for good. 

I would never be able to pretend that I did not want her, if she asked. I had never wanted anything quite so desperately in my life, except when I fell to my knees on the cold jagged stone of this city's ruination and tearfully entreated the deaf ears of Yevon for _another way_, some other solution that didn't require the sacrifice of the lives of the two men I held dearest. They wanted to save the world...but they were _my_ world. 

And that brings to mind the quite unavoidable fact that _I'm not really alive_ -- how can I let a living woman love me? She is so full of life and vitality, with so much promise ahead. I can offer only death and mourning; I can't hold on forever. Men look at her, I know. She would not be alone long, should I leave...but I can't, can I? _Ah Jecht, why did you bind me here?_

--------------------------------------   
End Chapter 12 

Song by Sarah McLachlan. Chap 13 is done too, but it's a little shorter than I'd like... 


	13. Relinquishment

Guardian, Chapter 13   
Relinquishment 

-------------------------------------- 

_And just let her cry   
If the tears fall down like rain   
Let her sing   
If it eases all her pain   
Let her go   
Let her walk right out on me   
And if the sun comes up tomorrow   
Let her be..._

-------------------------------------- 

At first, there was nothing unusual in the darkness...just the hazy, unrelieved black oblivion of a sleeping mind, where time has little meaning and awareness is mostly absent. Sentience flooded back to me in a flash when a pillar of fire blazed to life before me, forcing the night to give ground, retreating reluctantly into deep pools of liquid shadow that hid among formations of rock that seemed eerily familiar. The flames danced down into the more subdued flickering of a well-behaved campfire, and I finally saw Jecht sprawled elegantly in front of it, directly opposite me. 

His look was disconcertingly frank, too cognizant for a mere imagined shade. "Am I dreaming?" I blurted out eloquently. 

"It's easier this way, jackass," he said, as though that explained anything. "How is she?" he asked. 

Courteous as ever. _I've missed you, Jecht._ My fervent longing to see him again was tempered only by the dread of what I must say. I crossed over and sat heavily to his right, that I might look at him without being blinded by the fire. "She is well," I settled on, finally. 

"Good," was all he said, his expression unreadable. "The boy?" he asked expectantly. 

I don't know why telling him was so difficult; I guess it was just agonizing that he should have to ask _me_ how his own family was. "Nothing keeps him down for long. And though I never saw you play, I think he might well surpass you. Some have called him a prodigy." 

He nodded, an unmistakable gleam of pride creeping into his gaze at my words. The conversation flagged a little then -- no point in asking the other: _And how are you? _

Dead. You? 

Not quite yet, though I rather wish I were-- 

With some effort I banished the morbid thoughts, but something in the suddenly sardonic tilt of Jecht's smirk hinted that he had been thinking along the same lines. My mouth twisted slightly to return the not-smile in kind, but only briefly. There was one other thing left to tell him. 

"She doesn't know, Jecht." I bit the words out with difficulty. "I couldn't tell her." 

He feigned surprise. "Is a warrior-monk of _Yevon_ even capable of lying?" he asked, in a voice laced with sarcasm. 

"_Don't_ call me that," I growled angrily. 

He did not look chastised, but only sighed. "I rather thought that you might not." 

I told him the truth. "It would have killed her. She nearly died of missing you as it was..." 

Emotion finally showed plainly on his face, a strange mix of pain, love and gladness. He closed his eyes. 

"She still misses you, Jecht," I said, lower. "As do I." 

Jecht was a shrewd man, with an astonishing eye for detail, as Braska and I had realized when he stopped drinking. I was therefore not surprised by what he said next. 

"You like her, don't you, asshole." The words lacked the entire amount of vitriol that they might have had, by rights, but were recriminating nonetheless. 

I said nothing. My lack of denial was enough. 

He kicked a rock savagely into the fire, scattering sparks everywhere and sending flaming scraps of wood skipping across stone until the glowing embers died and melded slowly into ash and shade. I realized finally where we were, and why it was so hauntingly familiar. It was the last campsite we'd stayed in before entering Zanarkand, that sleepless, melancholy night when we two lay silently awake dreading the imminent loss of Braska. How vastly we had underestimated our capabilities for sorrow... 

"Does she love you?" he asked finally, in a voice that sounded almost dead. 

My head sank into my hands. "I don't _know_, Jecht. For her sake, I hope not," I groaned, in desperate misery. Heatedly, I cried, "Release me from that vow, Jecht! Unbind me and I swear I will leave her life forever." 

He gave a hoarse, humorless laugh. "Auron, it's a wonder you haven't yet managed to kill yourself a second time, you miserable bastard, as much as you beat yourself over the head with guilt that isn't yours." His voice said that he was not only talking about Serra, and the present. He looked suddenly very tired, but resigned. "If you left, it would only eventually be someone else." 

I couldn't stand to hear him say it. I wanted to weep for the look on his face, so tightly controlled that I knew it concealed the encroaching insanity he only mostly held at bay. Sin was already beginning to drive him mad. How could I bear to increase his torment? I wanted her, but not at such cost! "She deserves better than a dead man, Jecht!" 

His expression was still stone. "At least I know that, dead or not, you will protect her. And even a blind man could not miss that you love her." He looked away, speaking very softly. "Just...take care of her. Make her happy. For me." 

The useless words were out before I could stop them. "It should have been me. I wish--" 

The stone shattered. "Shut _up_, Auron!" he raged. "It was _my choice_, and nothing can change it now. Don't make it worse." He opened his hands and looked at them as though they felt suddenly unfamiliar...foreign. "I won't be able to do this again, Auron," he said strangely. "I don't think there is quite enough of me left." He stood up, turning away. 

"_Jecht!_" I cried, running over to catch his arm. "Wait--" 

"You're about to wake up, Auron..." He gave me that crooked half-smile, and tears finally sprang to my eyes as I saw in his gaze compassion for me, when _he_ was the one living in hell. Comparatively, my undead existence was paradise. 

I stood frozen in time while precious seconds ticked away. Alive, neither of us had ever been the type to-- 

But there would be no further chance; I cast the inhibition away, and 

_I **would** have this--_

grabbed him fiercely in a hold as tight as my arms allowed, embracing him as I should have while we both were living men. After a second I felt his arms close forcefully around me in return, and the wetness of his unshaven cheek against mine just before he started to fade. I tried frantically to hold on, but my arms sank uselessly through his increasingly transparent form. 

"I'll see you again!" I shouted desperately. "I _will_ free you!" 

--------------------------------------   
End Chapter 13 

The next chapter (or chapters, depending on how long it gets) should be fun; I wrote parts of it long ago, when I first started this story, and have been waiting to get there ever since. 

~Sango 

Song by Hootie and the Blowfish. 


	14. Storm, part 1

Guardian, Chapter 14   
Storm, part 1 

-------------------------------------- 

_I recognize the way you make me feel   
It's hard to think that   
You might not be real   
I sense it now, the water's getting deep   
I try to wash the pain away from me   
Away from me _

'Cause you're everywhere to me   
And when I catch my breath   
It's you I breathe   
You're everything I know   
That makes me believe   
I'm not alone... 

-------------------------------------- 

I sat alone with my tokkuri on the highest point of the roof, staring up into the surreal foreignness that was Jecht's Zanarkand, having long since stopped seeing it. It was not hard to believe that this gaudy and incessantly loud city was his place of origin. With only a bit of barely passable sake for company, I whole-heartedly cursed my newfound inability to get really and truly drunk. 

Did you know, Braska, that in the end your path would be the easiest of us all? Your steadfast acceptance of certain death humbled Jecht and I as we followed you to the end, though it tore at us with an anguish that never diminished. The guilt was unbearable for me, allowing you to die for our sakes, but you were immoveable. I spent the last half of the pilgrimage trying to find a different way, as if by sheer force of will I could somehow change everything and fabricate a solution where none existed. But _what utter irony_, that in the end you were the most fortunate -- a clean, quick death at the height of your glory. I don't argue that my tormented existence is the result of my own folly; attacking Yunalesca was pointless, reckless. Senseless. Perhaps even sheer cowardice, a last-ditch effort to avoid facing life without the two of you. But Jecht...the horror of his fate is beyond imagining. Can you see him, from the Farplane? Do you weep, as I wish that I still could? 

A female voice cut cleanly through the wind. "Auron?" 

Closing my eyes, I groaned inwardly, irritated at the unwelcome invasion into my melancholic brooding. What the hell was she doing up at this hour? 

"Auron? Are you all right?" She stood outside the house, at a distance far enough away to be visible from where I sat. The wind whipped her hair into a shifting tangle that now and again concealed her face, and the loose lightweight pants she must have been sleeping in fluttered madly around her ankles. They were obviously too long; they must have belonged to Jecht. 

No, Serra. I have not been 'all right' for quite some time. Just go the hell away. But I said nothing aloud, hoping that she would take the hint. 

She didn't. I heard the light scraping noise of bare feet against the wall. Yevon help me, the little fool was trying to climb up here. I had a sudden mental image of having to peel her flattened carcass off of the ground. "Serra--" 

"What?" Two wide, amethyst eyes peered up at me from the ledge as she hauled herself over, her shirt slipping just a bit to flash a hint of rounded flesh that I tried my best to ignore. 

It struck me suddenly, that she looked stronger than I'd yet seen her, more alive. At my strange look, she said, "Jecht used to come up here a lot, too. He loved to watch the city." She gazed up silently, her irises reflecting back to me the skyline painted in every possible hue of violet. She smiled softly, as if in remembrance. "I had to learn to make the climb as well, if I ever wanted to see him some nights." 

Unbidden, she sat next to me, close but not touching. Her wistful smile faded into concern, and she touched my hand. "Something really is bothering you." 

And I'm up here on your roof, in the middle of the night, because I want to _talk_. I certainly couldn't tell her what had driven me up here -- 

_Last week I talked to your 'dead' husband in a dream, and he told me to take you to bed._

Well, practically. I took a long pull on the jug, even though the unfortunate rice wine sorely wanted a thorough heating. "Being dead will do that," I pointed out sagely. 

"You keep saying that, but it seems to me that you are alive enough yet." Her hand had not left mine, and I tried to take it back. 

"I. Am. Dead. Nothing but force of habit keeps this heart beating. I don't need to eat or sleep, and I can't even fucking get drunk," I bit out, harshly. Perhaps I _was_ finally a little inebriated. 

She was unimpressed. "Well, since you're dead, give me that damned jacket, I'm freezing." 

Indeed she was. Gooseflesh covered her bare arms, and subtle evidence of her chill pressed against the light, useless shirt she wore as she trembled with cold. I looked away. "Then you should go inside," I said, crossly. But even as I spoke I was tearing off the belt, pulling my arm out of the sleeve before tossing the heavy red coat ungraciously at her. I suppose that perhaps I really didn't want her to leave...or I figured that whatever I might say she _wouldn't_ leave, so she may as well be warm. 

Her grateful smile was all the more beautiful for the innocent love shining through it, and I tasted despair. I saw no way out of this fatally tangled imbroglio. I couldn't leave, I couldn't die. 

Am I to wander this plane forever, tormented always by impossible choices? Is there _never another way?_

-------------------------------------- 

It surprised me, how unusually mordant he was tonight, when he actually spoke. It had been long minutes since either of us last said anything, and he seemed fine with that, engrossed as he was in staring darkly out into nothing. 

It fell to me then, to prod him into talking, to try and draw him out. But having lived so long with a man who kept nothing inside, I was unused to the task, and in my inexperience I fear I chose my words poorly. "Yours is a strange kind of death," I said. "You seem a living man to me. Look, even your hair has grown longer since you first came," I mused. Of its own volition, my hand rose to alight upon the braided black tail that fell over his shoulder. "Is your existence here really so horrible?" 

The bitterness in his eye flashed to anger before the last word left my lips. He yanked his hair savagely out of my hand, snapping the tie that bound it. "_You_ may be able to easily gloss over my death, but _I cannot_." 

He was furious now, such as I had never seen him, every muscle tightened and hands clenched into fists. This then, was the fearsome Guardian who sent foes unrepentantly to their deaths, should they dare to threaten his Summoner. It took an effort not to flinch away from such heated anger, so foreign on his face that it turned him into someone I did not know at all. The plait had fallen quickly out, and his hair snapped behind him like a black banner in the wind. 

He sharpened each word to a cutting edge, that he might better flay at my heart. "Can you even imagine, Serra, the undiluted mix of guilt, grief and frustrated fury that would blind a man to all reason, overtake every waking thought, and incite him into throwing himself at a power many times greater than himself, to his certain doom, with no thought other than to end the madness and silence the pain?" 

The steel in his gaze gave me no leave to speak, could I have found words. 

"Can you imagine the sobering chill of your own steel reflected back to you in a death-blow, a merciless harbinger of the realization that the only thing worse than your unforgivable failure in life would be to betray them also in death? Could you face the wretched decision to forsake the blessed oblivion so close at hand and return instead to a life far worse than the one you tried so hard to leave, now also wracked by blood and agony and the constant wearying pain of holding your body together against its will?" 

I saw it in my mind so clearly, the vivid image of him rushing toward she who offered both revenge and death. If I had pitied him greatly the first time I heard his tale, he a stranger and I mired deeply within my own boundless sorrow, how much more did my heart ache for him now, when I loved him? His pain was no longer his alone, whether he liked it or not. 

He finally fell silent, eye narrowed almost expectantly. Did he really think I was going to run away so easily, like a chastened child? Even had I wanted to, how could I leave after glimpsing the lonely, tormented agony he thought so well-hidden behind that towering rage? 

"I'm sorry for that, Auron," I said quietly. It was hard to breathe, overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of the emotions roiling with me. "I can't know how it was for you. But...I might know at least what it's like to drown in pain, wishing for death." 

Something flickered in his gaze, though it remained unreadable to me. 

I tried unsuccessfully to swallow around the lump in my throat. "I'm not as strong as you. If not for you I would have found it. If you, who did not know us, could hang onto such a life to care for my son, what does that say about me, his mother?" 

_Ah, damn it._ I had not meant to say that last part. That was something I had yet to come to terms with. 

I only noticed the tears on my face when he frowned slightly, redirecting some of the anger at himself. That he made no apology spoke volumes about the depth of his fury. 

"I'm sorry," I said simply, making one last attempt to reach him. "You never speak of pain or weariness. I had no idea that it was so hard for you, even now." 

"Every day is worse," he said tonelessly. 

"Let me help you," I almost pleaded. "Let me ease what little of it I may." We both knew what I offered, though neither of us had yet spoken of what we felt for the other. "Let me in." 

--------------------------------------   
End Chapter 14 

Part 2 coming soon. It was just getting a little long. 


	15. Storm, part 2

Guardian, Chapter 15   
Storm, part 2 

-------------------------------------- 

_And if there's no tomorrow   
And all we have is here and now   
I'm happy just to have you   
You're all the love I need somehow   
It's like a dream   
Although I'm not asleep   
And I never want to wake up   
Don't lose it, don't leave it..._

-------------------------------------- 

The world spun slowly on its axis while tensile strands of fierce emotion twined 'round and caught us in an unseen web, held fast as neatly as any spider's prey. Like statues cast to living stone by the petrifying gaze of the other, we sat motionless except for the faint struggle to inhale air suddenly heavy with the weight of fate, choice, and circumstance. Nearly swallowed by an ocean of red wool, damp tendrils of hair clinging stubbornly to the remnant of tears on her face, she looked suddenly childlike and vulnerable, her exposed heart lying earnestly between us, trustingly laid open and awaiting my response. 

The last mulish flames of my smoldering rage flickered and died, mollified by her apology, defeated by her tears. As the red haze lifted, I grew instead vaguely angry at myself; why had I expected her to fully understand the idea of being unsent? Here there were no sendings, no fiends or pyreflies. People just died and that was the end of it. She could not have known about the endless testing of my will, the strain of resisting the pull that beckoned and seduced with an intensity not even these hundreds of days could lessen. She could not have known, because I had not told her. 

In the city below, the teeming masses still swarmed like maddened ants through the tangled maze of streets, nearly trampling each other in dogged pursuit of bacchanalian diversion, relentlessly hunting down the next faceless conquest to fill the void and kill the ennui. Swirling grey clouds raced frantically through the unnaturally bright, neon-kissed sky, driven hard by the whipping wind and the low crescendo of approaching thunder. All was as before, except on this roof, where time itself seemed to pause and draw near in breathless anticipation, bending low to hear the simple words with the power to change everything. 

-------------------------------------- 

I had not noticed the coat slipping from my shoulders until I felt the melting warmth of his hands settle gently upon them. The calloused palms infused blissful heat into my chilled skin, thumbs lightly grazing throat and collarbone with a small electric jolt that made me shiver. It was a near-embrace I might have relished, had not the underlying tension in muscle and sinew blatantly exposed his intent to keep me at a distance. 

"Serra." The wine-colored gaze tilted gravely down at me was patient, shielded but for a touch of bitter rue. "It can't work." 

He said nothing else, his fingers brushing the skin of my arms with an intolerable lightness as they slid down to grasp the coat by its lapels. With care not to touch me again, he raised its warmth back around me as he stood and stiffly withdrew, suddenly all polite, indifferent formality. A lock of dark hair caught briefly in the corner of his mouth and danced away again, away from me, as beautiful and untouchable as the rest of him. 

Hurt and anger warred for dominance in my mind. Anger won easily, and I stood to face him, silently cursing the diminutive height that forced me to look so far up. "Well, why not?" I held his bland, neutral gaze fiercely, as if that could somehow make him stay. "Is that all you're going to say? Haven't I made my feelings plain enough? I _know_ you feel the same!" 

His eye gave back nothing. "It isn't possible. I'm sorry." 

His infuriatingly tolerant mask of stoicism did not waver, and the total lack of emotion only served to heighten my own, catalyzing a violent explosion. "Tell me you don't want me!" I demanded uncertainly, my voice rising unsteadily, still refusing to let him look away. "Look me in the eye, and tell me you don't care!" If I could only hold on to the anger, I might yet fend off the tears. I would at least spare myself that humiliation... 

He sighed, an exhalation of breath so slight I almost missed it. "I can't," he said softly, an unreadable expression at last flickering in the russet of his eye. "You know that I can't, Serra." My name was almost a caress. "It's because I care for you that I'm telling you this cannot be." 

The calm, simple admission stole the wind from my sails, and I sat heavily down again, knees drawn up against my chest, staring into the night sky as it began to blur. The moon drew aside her clouded veil to gaze down at me, and her pale face was sad. _I had to ask._ In a voice involuntarily muted by the tightening in my throat, I asked, "Because of Jecht?" 

-------------------------------------- 

_If only it were that simple._ Even at my blackest moments, I had not imagined that this would be so unbelievably hard. In the end it was only made possible by retreating into opiate detachment, embracing the dead space in my heart created when _they_ died, shoving the pain deep into its great gaping maw where it could not touch me. How could I now put into words what I needed to say? I could not say "yes"; that would be as good as an accusation of disloyalty against her own feelings. Hurting her was inevitable, but I wanted to spare her that. No longer looking at me, her anguished gaze had turned inward, the irises darkened into a bruised lavender-grey. 

Well, there were plenty of other impassable barriers standing in opposition to what she sought. Or at least one very good one. "No, Serra, it isn't Jecht." I said firmly. "It's _me_. What kind of man would I be, to let you throw your heart away on a dead man?" 

A mulish spark flared in her eyes, as if to say _this again?_ but I placed a finger on her lips to forestall her retort. 

"Listen to me. You're young, beautiful. You deserve a man who will give you many years yet, and children. I am only a corpse living on borrowed time; I can offer neither." 

She took my hand in both of hers, and I let her draw it down to rest in her lap. "You aren't a corpse," she said matter-of-factly. "You're _you_, the only Auron I've ever known, and I love you, whatever you may be." 

I reeled slightly at the words, and the unbidden warmth that rose in my chest. _Love?_ Were her feelings already so strong? 

Her thumbs moved in unconscious circles over my palm, undermining my resolve. "There are no guarantees that any man I loved could give me many years, or even children." Her lips twisted into a slight smile. "Though I'm not sure I could handle any more like Tidus." 

There was something I hadn't thought about -- _Yevon forbid._

Her gaze intensified, and the hands holding mine stilled and tightened their grip. "If there is one thing I learned from losing Jecht, it is that you must make the most of whatever time you are given." She looked away and said softly, "We thought we'd have a lifetime together, but in the end we had only a short span of years that we squandered, spending so much time apart." 

"Serra," I began, but she wasn't listening. 

"I won't make the same mistake again, Auron." Her eyes were a stubborn steel grey. "You may have two years, or twenty, but I won't willingly surrender _any_ of them." 

-------------------------------------- 

Auron was suddenly, irrationally, incensed. "You speak so blithely about death and sorrow! Let us not forget you nearly died of it! If I love you, and know my time is short, how can I bear knowing that my inevitable departure would kill you as Jecht's almost did?" he shouted, at last utterly forsaking the mask of artificial impassivity. 

Serra felt a dart of fierce exultation at having finally broken through his exterior. _Ah, the heart of the matter. But can't he see?_

"It's too _late_ for that!" she shouted back at him, and they fell into angry silence. 

Rain began to descend from the vast darkness over their heads, scant at first but increasingly more dense, melding into a constant soaking downpour that obscured everything in sight. The din of a million tiny watery impacts built to a crescendo that smothered out every other sound from the surrounding metropolis, immersing the two of them in a strange and peacefully surreal silence that settled around them like a blanket. Ceaseless droplets rippled silvery puddles into a rainbow of ephemeral, sequined patterns where the vivid glow of neon met the darkly mirrored water. Serra lifted her face into the rain, closing her eyes. Auron turned to look at the clean lines of her delicate profile, crystalline droplets gliding down her upturned face like liquid diamonds, trailing into the corner of her mouth. 

She broke the silence first, her eyes still shut as if in pain. "If that were going to happen, it would already be too late," she said carefully, barely speaking over the rain. "But you see, Auron, I have learned a hard lesson. I can never forget what I did to Tidus, to my baby. He lost one parent, and instead of trying to make his broken world secure, I nearly robbed him of the other. No mother could forgive herself for that, for neglecting her heartbroken child in favor of herself and her own pain. It will not happen twice." 

He remained silent, and she could read nothing one way or the other in his expression. She asked finally, "Can you really throw away this kind of love, something so rarely found?" 

The fight drained out of him, and he despaired, having no good choice left to make. Jecht's words rang in his head, asking his friend to ensure her happiness. But... "Why are you so set on this?" he countered. 

"I like stubborn men," she said, deadpan. A surprised bark of laughter escaped before he could stop himself. A joke, yes, but that was also about the only personality trait he and Jecht had in common. 

His protests grew half-hearted, if a bit petulant. "I'm not fit to be any woman's lover," he said bitterly. "For all I know, I may not even be _capable_." 

She quirked an eyebrow. "I highly doubt that," she said wryly, and then her expression sobered. "But will you believe me when I say that I would not care, even if that were so?" 

"You have a host of poorly written novels that might say otherwise," he pointed out evenly. 

She colored at that, but said without hesitation, "If that were all I wanted, I wouldn't need a man." The look he gave her was quizzical, but she was _not_ going to elaborate. Greatly daring, she lightly traced the contours of his face, running her hand along the line of his jaw. 

He closed his eyes when her fingers grazed the scarred cheek and lingered there. "Don't," he said involuntarily. "Your touch tears me apart." 

She took her hand back. "What do you mean?" 

He took a long time in answering. "For so long, all I wanted was the peace of death. I had lived my life, and was ready for it to be over. But you..." He paused. "You make me want to be alive again. You make me want to be a living man, a lover, husband, father. And I can be none of those things, ever. My humanity is only pretense." 

She listened somberly at first, but by the time he finished her lips had curved slightly upward into an amused smile. He glared at her, angered again at her refusal to take him seriously. "Are you _listening_ to me?" 

She sighed, but the smile did not leave altogether. "Auron, do you realize that you're shivering?" 

As soon as she mentioned it, he finally noticed the slight tremors that ran through him and swore emphatically. He _knew_ that he wasn't cold, but his body seemed to think that it _should_ be, sitting soaked to the bone in only a light shirt in the middle of a midnight storm, and proceeded to shiver anyway. 

"See? You _are_ cold." 

No. Yes-- 

-------------------------------------- 

The look on his face of furious confusion, overlying a deeper pain, tore at my heart. Before he could flinch away I opened my arms, crawling onto his lap, and enfolded him in my red-cloaked embrace, sharing the warmth contained by the weather-proof wool. The voluminous coat was dry on the inside and almost covered us both, but not quite. 

He tensed for an instant, but the roof was too precarious a place for sudden movement, and the last bit of resistance seemed to leave him all at once. After a time, his arms slipped under mine to wrap around me, his chin slowly descending to rest on my hair. "You're going to be soaking wet," he mumbled, but I paid no mind. All I could feel was the solidity of him finally wrapped in my arms. 

"Auron," I said, trying to reach him. "Whatever your body is now, your mind is still human and alive. And it's the mind that controls the body, each neural impulse, every beat of the heart." 

He said nothing, so I continued. "That's why you feel cold, why your heart," I drew a hand down to alight against his chest, "still beats. It's the mind that thinks and feels and _loves_, so tell me again why what I feel is wrong?" 

I drew back to gauge his reaction. He still looked anguished, but did not have a ready response. I was amazed to find him for once at a loss for words. He tried anyway. "Serra..." 

Tired of trying to convince him with mere words, I took advantage of the parted lips and kissed him. 

--------------------------------------   
End Chapter 15 

I have no idea why this was so hard to write. The content has been there for ages, I just couldn't arrange it the way that I wanted. I kept revising and rewriting and not making any progress. Anyway, I apologize for the delay...I'm sure it wasn't _quite_ worth that long of a wait! ;) A good bit of the next chapter has already been written as well, but with my current track record...who knows? 

Song quote from "Breathless", by the Corrs. 


	16. Dream

Guardian, Chapter 16   
Dream 

-------------------------------------- 

_Give me your lips for just a moment,   
And my imagination will make that moment live.   
Give me what you alone can give,   
A kiss to build a dream on._

-------------------------------------- 

At the first contact of my lips against his, he flinched as though I'd hit him, the circle of his arms shuddering convulsively as his whole body tensed -- but then almost instantly the shocked resistance vanished as though it had never been, his adamantine control tangibly snapping like a dam stressed beyond its limits by heavy spring rain. He crushed me against him hard enough to restrict breath, the kiss rapidly dissolving into nothing but sheer sensation. My world condensed to 

the taste of sake on his lips, 

the soft rain on my upturned face, 

the wet silk of his hair threading through my fingers, 

the burning heat of his skin, 

and the scent suffusing my senses that was just uniquely his. 

My heart was pounding; I'd never before been so bold as to make the first move and risk rejection. But I wanted this, wanted it so much that I had no other option, knowing he would never permit himself to take such liberty. 

And now it was as though I'd tripped a switch, opening a circuit that sent a fierce current raging through him, an electric vibrancy shining through his heated gaze that was vividly alive and plainly skirting the fine edge of losing all control. His unshaven cheek tickled the underside of my jaw as he lowered his head to my neck, devouring the sensitive skin mercilessly, biting with a hint of something primal and possessive. His hands were insistent as they roved, their grip firm, though the touch was gentle. I melted under the onslaught, capitulating willingly, letting him mold me like clay and knowing a fierce joy that at last he was letting himself go, finally giving in to his own desires. Sublimely happy just to know he loved and wanted me as much as I did him. 

And then suddenly, the switch was off and he was Auron the Guardian again, all silent dignity and the paragon of restraint, if one whose breath still came too fast. He held my hands firmly away from him, malleable as steel, though his gaze still fixated on my lips. Disappointment formed a cold knot in my belly as he said, "No, Serra--" 

-------------------------------------- 

Dead or alive, a man can only take so much, and I am no saint. She tasted like light and life, a heady elixir that stole all reason and rationality. My hands slid easily under cloth to memorize the feel of her skin, running down the slope of her back to settle at her waist, tugging her close. She was sweetly pliant under my exploring touch, surrendering eagerly as though she wanted me to know every inch. She unfastened my breastplate with surprising dexterity and ran her hands over my chest, trailing light fingers with intolerable slowness down the plane of my stomach. My addled senses finally noticed that her other knee had come round my waist, settling us into a position that could only be called unchaste, at best. The play of muscle in her thighs was very nearly my undoing, and belatedly alarmed, I tried to swim back to shore and sanity. Only, I couldn't quite remember where that was, and right here the water was really so very pleasant...she lightly bit my lower lip and I almost groaned aloud. I gathered my emotions back to myself by sheer force of will, scrabbling for a scintilla of control. I fixed the image in my mind of her tearful regret on the morrow, and restraint was suddenly easy. I would not let her have any cause for remorse. 

I pulled away slowly, neither one of us breathing evenly. "No, Serra. Not like this." I held her hands firmly but gently away from me. "I want you to be sure." 

"I _am_ sure," she said, in a breathy voice that sounded slightly hurt. She sighed. "But I think that _you_ need to be sure of me." She smiled easily at me. "Misplaced chivalry perhaps; not wanting to take advantage of a lonely widow. Or maybe you still don't quite believe my feelings are genuine." 

I could say nothing. She read me far too well -- someday she would see too much. For deep down, I did remain unconvinced that such a beautiful, winsome creature could truly want this tenebrous, _undead_ former Guardian, irrevocably scarred inside and out. The pretty face admired by women and the source of no little vanity in my youth was long gone. They certainly hadn't been attracted to my pompous arrogance and somber demeanor. 

She turned her hands in mine until she was the one grasping me, and tugged me to my feet. "All right then, Auron, will you at least come down with me?" she asked with a lightness belied by the emotion her eyes could not hide, darkening into a rich violet of nervousness and want. "Sleep next to me tonight." 

I should have said no, but Yevon help me, I could not deny her, nor did I want to. "If it is what you want." 

-------------------------------------- 

He did not resist as I led him by the hand through the darkened house, the two of us creeping silently like teenagers sneaking out from under their parents' noses to make out surreptitiously after hours. Truth be told, it would have been far better to let _him_ lead, who knew how to make his way safely in the dark, as I realized when I bumped painfully into the corner of an end table. I swore and he grunted in what could almost have been a low chuckle. But it was fun to drag him along, being the aggressor I never had been with Jecht, reveling in the knowledge that he willingly followed. 

I pulled him into the room and shut the door softly behind us. The rain had stopped, and moonlight poured brightly through the unshuttered windows, washing everything into shades of silver, blue, and midnight. He stood leaning back against the door in an almost casual pose I might have believed had not his pulse thrummed visibly in his throat. I tentatively slipped the wet coat from my shoulders and stepped over it, suddenly uncertain. The irritated glance he spared the untidy heap of red wool I had made of his favored jacket made me laugh unexpectedly, and the tension vanished. 

-------------------------------------- 

Serra peeled off the clinging shirt that already hid nothing, soaking wet as it was, and let it drop to join the coat. This time he paid no notice. She stood silently under his observation, waiting for him to step closer, her skin turned to pale, flawless marble in the low light. 

She was slight, but well-proportioned, the lines of her form generously curved and different in every way from the willowy, patrician, high priest's daughter who had tried to seduce him into marriage all those years ago. Her hair was almost black in the near-darkness, but wetly shining, a random lacework pattern that clung to breast, shoulder and back. He drank in the sight of her long enough for a roseate blush to rise in her pale skin, but she made no move to cover up. 

At last he joined her, looking down silently. She began to remove his own thoroughly drenched shirt, and though he didn't resist, he didn't cooperate, either. She smacked him lightly. "Come on, you can't sleep in that." He slowly started taking it off himself, and she turned to the dresser to find dry clothes for them to sleep in. He did not look as she shed the rest of her clothing. She tossed a folded pair of soft trousers at him. "Go change in the bathroom, if you must," she teased him. He didn't move, and the reason for his reluctance finally became obvious to her. She sobered, and said, "It's all right, Auron. He doesn't need them anymore." 

Well, _that_ was true enough, he thought. 

She crooked an eyebrow at him. "That is, unless you want to sleep naked," she purred in a mock-seductive tone. He grunted and left to change. 

He returned and climbed into bed without comment, though his breathing paused when she curled up against him, nudging his arm until he lifted it around her. "Your innocence is safe with me," she jabbed, unable to resist poking fun at him. 

_Yes, Serra, but are you safe with me?_

But he only stroked her still-wet hair, falling asleep with the soft warmth of her breath against his neck, his arm wrapped as comfortably around her waist as though it had always been there. 

--------------------------------------   
End Chapter 16 

Wow, two whole chapters in less than a week! I promise to keep going, but I have to give my other piece(s) some attention first ;) 

And, yay for new artwork! Say thanks to Mimi for the pic of Auron on the roof. (I can't add links to the chapters anymore, but you can find a link near the bottom of my bio.) 

Song quote from "A Kiss To Build A Dream On" by Louis Armstrong. 


	17. Angel

Guardian, Chapter 17   
Angel 

-------------------------------------- 

_It doesn't mean much   
it doesn't mean anything at all   
The life I've left behind me   
is a cold room _

I've crossed the last line   
from where I can't return   
where every step I took in faith   
betrayed me... 

You take me in   
no questions asked   
You strip away the ugliness   
that surrounds me 

Are you an angel?   
Am I already that gone? 

-------------------------------------- 

Sleep was elusive then, a quicksilver fish darting through my hands every time I almost caught it. Serra herself was hardly less wriggly; lying with her was not the quiet, serene bliss I'd permitted myself to imagine on rare occasion. She flailed about now and then in dreams, more than once nailing me with an elbow in a gut that wasn't as rock-hard as it had once been. Oh, I wasn't growing fat, not yet, but life with her was making me soft. 

_Did I mind? No._

I couldn't remember a time in my living days when I wasn't training for war. Was this, then, what a life spent in peaceful times was like? I would take this new quietude in my breast over the steel-corded muscle any day, constantly knotted as it had been with tension and the feeling that the next fight lay in wait at any moment, ready to spring and rend with razored claws. 

Anyway, the only way to avoid the dangerous knees and elbows was to keep close within their range, nestled snugly against her, and I damn well didn't mind. She quieted when I gathered her to me, nuzzling into my neck. And then she muttered a barely intelligible word that froze my heart -- 

"Jecht." 

I stopped breathing, killed by a name. 

Until she exhaled again, sleepily, "Auron..." 

I sucked in air again, barely registering the faint squeeze of her arms tightening around me. Her lips were butterfly wings against my throat. 

"Love you," she said clearly, earnestly. 

But to which of us did she speak? What was our relationship now? Not lovers, but more than mere friends. I wanted nothing more than to touch her, but was paralyzed with fear of crossing the line that would forever change everything. 

Or had everything already changed tonight, in spite of me? 

She stirred against me in a way that called instantly to mind what I had been trying to avoid thinking about this entire time. Her stomach pressed skin-to-skin against me where her shirt had ridden upward, the curves so mysterious to man burning suddenly hot under my traitorous hand as though limned in fire. 

I had to get out of there, before I abandoned all good sense and took her then and there. I didn't want to take advantage-- 

_Coward_, I spat at myself. At least admit the truth in your own mind. You're the one who isn't ready. You're terrified. 

-------------------------------------- 

The feather-light touch of fingers gliding through my hair roused me, though by the time I came fully awake he had gone, leaving only the warmth of his body behind. No, not only that; some object lay nestled in the center of the now-empty pillow, but I was too lethargic yet to find out what it was. 

Disappointment chilled me slightly, and I curled up under the sheets, tucking my knees to my chest and staring out the window at the first brave rays of sunlight venturing into the sky. Truthfully, I was also a little relieved. Tidus would surely arrive any moment now, jumping on the bed and tickling me until I agreed to get up. What lay between Auron and I was so ill-defined at the moment, I didn't want to have to try and explain things to my son. 

I sat up finally and picked up the item he'd left, and the small note I'd not noticed before. It was a curious piece, a bright string of beads and feathers strung on a leather cord, in a pattern that seemed to have some unknown order. 

The writing was elegant, more beautiful than mine, and yet definitely masculine. The note was penned in a bold, graceful hand, slightly foreign-looking and shaping some of the vowels oddly. It read: 

_This was something of significance once, but I am of that order no longer. In turn it has become merely a pretty bauble, a useless bagatelle of colored glass and string. But it is yet part of who I was, and I would like for you to have it._

The signature was nothing I could read, a tangle of sigils so entwined that I could not tell at first if they were foreign or merely twisted around each other. I tried to commit it to memory. _His name._

It finally dawned on me where I had seen these beads before: strung from the shoulder guard of the jacket he always wore. I was touched by the gift of something that still must have held some importance to him, as one of the few objects carried with him from his sylvan homeland so far from here. 

I wanted to keep the gift on me somehow, but it did not lend itself to be worn easily by someone with no coat to which it could be attached. I finally tucked it into my most private drawer, away from small curious hands, along with his note. After that, I padded sleepily toward the kitchen to brew coffee. From where I sat I could see Auron outside practicing his forms. It was an unusually early hour for him, and he put more vehemence into the moves than normal, slashing furiously at nothing. 

As the unparalleled aroma of gourmet coffee revived my fuzzy brain, I realized that Tidus had never come to waken me. Indeed, it had been a few days...or weeks, since he had? I was saddened to discover that he might have outgrown that morning ritual. Then he came in from the living room where he'd been sprawled on the floor playing vidgames, and hugged me good morning, asking about breakfast. 

"Mom, leggo!" he squawked when I held on a little too tight, a little too long. 

-------------------------------------- 

The next week or so was like performing in a circus: walking a tightrope and juggling all at once. I so desperately wanted to touch him, to be with him, but I had to tread a fine line -- if I pressed too hard, asked too much, he would retreat, leaving only the Guardian in his place to deal with me. 

I sensed the same desperation in him, the same yearning for a love that had long been absent from his life. The frustration was so intense that I wanted to scream, and when alone I _did_ cry hot tears of helpless anger. I saw that he was paralyzed by his own guilt, fear of pressuring me, and feelings of inadequacy. I wouldn't give up on him, because something in his closed-off expression was begging me to liberate what he tried so hard to suppress, to drag it out into the light of day. I felt that we'd passed some kind of turning point, that our relationship was forever changed, but from the way he paced the halls like a caged animal, I knew that he was uneasy. 

I was concerned at first, that Tidus would catch on too soon to the change in our relationship. I was not sure of his reaction. I need not have worried; Auron was not the type to show overt affection when an audience was present. Even as much as I knew he loved Tidus, he met every exuberant hug with a long-suffering expression on his face that plainly said, "Oh all _right_, if you must..." So I should not have been surprised that the only gesture he made toward me when we weren't alone were an occasional touch of his hand on mine. Mindful of Tidus's resentment for his father concerning me, and valuing the relationship that he now had with his friend's son, he was especially careful to give the boy no reason to think anything unusual was happening with us. I cannot say he was wrong; I wasn't sure what to tell my son either. Everything with Auron was so new, and uncertain -- I wanted to protect it, to nurture its fledgling steps, and selfishly I also wanted to keep it to ourselves, just at first. And so I let Auron maintain the distance he needed, though it killed me to be so close to him, and yet so far away. 

I wanted him in every way; I was driven nearly insane with it, and the new closeness we shared was maddening. He slipped into my room every night to lie next to me, but a chaste, careful kiss was the only physical contact he would initiate. I was afraid that to try for more would chase him from the room completely, and so I contented myself with what was, after all, more than I'd dreamed of having from him just days ago. 

If Tidus noticed the new tension between us, he gave no sign. He was the same ebullient child as ever, a ball of energy happily thriving on his blitzball team in a way he never had under his father's tutelage. I even dragged Auron to a match, once, though he spoke only in monosyllables for the rest of the day after I unconsciously tried to hold his hand in the public arena. 

I spent countless hours entertaining fantasies of how to break through this barrier, some ludicrous, some serious. I was shocked out of my irritated brooding one afternoon when Tidus arrived home early from practice, sporting a black eye and a lump on his forehead, trailing his coach behind him. The man's name escaped me, but his face was familiar; He'd been a blitzer friend of Jecht's I had rather liked. 

"Don't worry, Mom," the coach said placatingly, winking at me. "He's fine, he just ended up on the wrong end of a tackle. I wanted to walk him home, just to be safe. Do you have some ice?" he asked, walking over to the fridge unit without waiting for an answer. 

Taylor? Troy? Ty. I think that was his name. He was ruggedly handsome, in the same raffish way Jecht had been, shaggy-haired and tattooed, though that was where the similarity ended. He'd been a teammate of Jecht's until right before my husband's disappearance, when he'd been sidelined by an injury that never quite healed completely. Ty seemed happy enough now, coaching in the youth leagues, and was great with the kids in a way my husband never had been. I wondered sadly if Jecht might have learned, given more time. 

Auron had come silently into the room with his deceptively lazy, catlike stride, going immediately over to Tidus. He lifted the boy's chin to peer into his eyes, tilting Tidus's head to each side and probing the lump with a gentle finger. I looked questioningly at him. He grunted in a way that seemed to indicate it was no big deal. "Doesn't look concussed," was all he said, moving out of the way when the ex-blitzer came back with the ice. His expression stayed rather dark, in spite of the reassuring words. 

I knew better than anyone how seriously Auron regarded his duty to keep Tidus safe, so as he seemed unconcerned I tried to smother the motherly urge to hover embarrassingly over my son in front of his coach. I could see that he was trying valiantly to appear manly. He'd managed not to cry so far, and that was something new. Finally, I sent him to go wash up and change. "And keep the ice on that eye!" I called after him, indulging myself a little. 

Ty sat at my kitchen table with the sprawled elegance of a professional athlete, long muscled limbs completely at ease but looking ready for action in a heartbeat. "Tidus has a lot of potential, you know," he told me seriously. "He could follow in his dad's footsteps, play professionally." 

I'd known he was a good player, one of the better ones, but this was still a little unexpected. "You think so, Ty?" I asked, startled. Auron did not show any surprise. Ty did not correct me so I assumed that I'd gotten his name right. 

I sat at the table, opposite him. My Guardian stayed leaning against the wall at my back with arms crossed, and from this angle I could no longer see his expression. Not that it gave away much, anyway. 

"Definitely," Ty reaffirmed. 

I wasn't sure how I felt about this. It wasn't an easy life, traveling so much, but it also seemed so fitting. Tidus really was supremely graceful in the water, more at home there than anywhere else. _I wish that you could watch him play, Jecht._

"Have you told him this? Is that what he wants?" 

"Nah." Ty shook his head, a familiar gesture that reminded me of another shaggy-haired player. "Let him be a kid a while longer, and not worry about something so far away. Right now it should only be for fun." He locked his fingers behind his head and stretched a bit. "I've seen too many kids lose the heart to play under the pressure of other people's ambition for their lives. It won't be any easier for him, as the son of a great player whose career ended too soon." 

He closed his mouth abruptly and glanced at me worriedly, as though he feared he'd said something upsetting. It was the same kind of expression Jecht used to wear, a man who always spoke first and then worried about the effect of his words later. 

I smiled in amusement, and remembrance. "Jecht would be proud of him. And you're right, he shouldn't be thinking about all of that just yet." 

Ty visibly relaxed when I didn't dissolve into tears. He leaned forward, saying, "One more thing: Tidus is a little small for his age, blessed with immense talent and more than his fair share of attitude. I know he comes by it honestly," he laughed, "but all of this might have led to him being the target of an excessively forceful tackle today. I've already spoken to the other boy and his parents, but if Tidus does want to pursue a career in blitzball he'll have to be ready to deal with the trouble his mouth brings him." 

I can't say that I was happy to hear this, but I couldn't protect him from everything and everyone his entire life. After all, Jecht had been in his share of blitz-related fights. I guess it was to be expected. 

-------------------------------------- 

Tidus came in wearing different clothes, though I wasn't sure he'd actually washed anything. Serra was visibly trying not to fixate on his poor injured face. 

"Hey kid, nice eye," teased the man she'd named as Ty. "Should be a real pretty purple by morning." 

Tidus grinned up at him, and then stuck his tongue out in response. I suppressed a more insulting gesture. I'd disliked him intensely as soon as he shone the tilted, indolent grin in my direction, visibly dismissing the scarred man as no true competition for Serra's affection. I hated the way he leaned into her, standing too close, and the unconscious way she responded, her slight blush, the genuine smile of pleasure in his company. 

"I was just making a late lunch," she said amicably, as he stood to leave. "Would you like some?" 

Oh, _hell no_. I was not going to sit down with this buffoon and suffer his unsubtle advances on Serra while she made eyes at him. He was all of the things I disliked about Jecht with none of the things that endeared him to me: arrogant confidence without the tempering touch of self-mocking humor, loud without at least having something of import to say on occasion, unwaveringly sure of his charismatic effect on people without the spark of true interest or concern for others that actually made it work, drawing them near. His whole aura radiated chaotic allure, and he was bedizened like a gypsy, bare-chested and tattooed, with earrings in each ear and shells and other unidentifiable objects braided into his mane of unkempt hair. Just looking at him made my skin crawl. I made myself scarce before she could turn and trap me with her innocent eyes. 

-------------------------------------- 

_Lunch was pleasant enough, but Auron's absence nagged at me. I was irritated with him for disappearing. It was for him that I'd made the meal in the first place, why had he left?_

She was waiting for me when I returned, silently sitting in the darkened living room, nestled in the center of the couch. From the look on her face, she was Not Happy. 

"Where have you been?" Her voice was not quite neutral as she stood. She was upset. Why? 

I shrugged. "Out," was all I said. I started to move past her, calmly. 

"Wait," she demanded. Amethystine steel pinned me to the spot. "Just what is your problem?" __

I crossed over from irritated to angry as he coolly brushed me off and moved to leave, when I'd been waiting for him all night. Tidus was long asleep, and Auron, for all his solitude, had never been out this late before. Not counting when he was on the roof. 

He seemed to take issue with my tone, and finally showed a bit of his own anger. "I don't have a problem!" Immediately restoring his voice to its usual implacid tone, he continued, "I thought you would have enjoyed the chance to catch up with your friend." 

I read easily between the lines. I wasn't stupid, but I could have kicked myself for not figuring this out sooner. Ty was very much like Jecht, not to mention unscarred and alive. It wasn't surprising, Auron's reaction. My anger evaporated. 

Sighing, I asked earnestly, "What do I have to do to convince you that it's only **you** that I want?" And then I realized the answer to my own question. I planted my hands into his chest and shoved, until he fell into a sitting position on the couch. Climbing astride him, I started unbuttoning his shirt. 

He looked scandalized, and tried to grab my hands. I avoided him. "Serra--" 

"_No._ You're not allowed to speak, unless it's to say, 'Okay, I believe you, Serra.'" A strange glint came into his eye, and he fell silent as I finished with the buttons and ran fingertips over the exposed skin. 

I began next to unbraid the warrior's tail, as I'd been dying to run my fingers through the curtain of heavy silk when it wasn't soaking wet, like the last time. He closed his eye, tipping his head back as I gently massaged his scalp, and then the tense muscles of his neck. Pushing the dark strands back from his forehead, I planted a line of kisses lightly down the length of the scar that ran from hairline to jaw, and he shuddered, muscles tightening as though to resist. His hands came up to my shoulders, pushing me away, but I would not be moved. 

"Ssh. It's okay," I whispered. This wasn't foreplay; it was my attempt to tell him everything I felt without words, which were so easy for him to disbelieve. He could not doubt the truth of what I did not say aloud. I moved to his neck, feeling the pulse hammer beneath my lips. My arms snaked around his back to work out the knots of tension there. 

Drawing back after a long moment, I cupped his cheeks in my hands, and he opened his eye guardedly. Almost as of their own volition, his hands slid with firm slowness down my thighs to grasp my waist. 

"Do you believe me yet?" I asked. "Or do I need to break out the big guns?" 

"That remains to be seen, Madam," he said with total seriousness. "But perhaps that is a thing best not done here," he added solemnly, though the upturned corner of his otherwise somber mouth ruined the effect. 

I stifled a gasp as he sprung suddenly from the couch, sweeping me into the air, and I held on for dear life as he crossed the room in a few long strides, stopping in front of my bedroom door. 

His face was utterly serious now, poised at the threshold, but his voice was a low blend of desire and apprehension. "You are sure about this?" 

"If you don't open that door _right now_ and ravage me senseless, I'm going to hit you," I said. Did I really just use the word 'ravage'? 

The muscle in his arms shifted and bunched as he tossed me into the center of the bed with a low growling laugh, ignoring my put-upon expression at being hefted around like a sack of potatoes. He pounced on me and I felt a little thrill of fear, being the object of such determined pursuit, never having seen him show this kind of aggression. Of course I should have expected it; he was a long-seasoned warrior in his own land, it was only here that the lack of a place in our society reduced him to a part-time babysitter with scholarly pursuits. The predatory gleam in his eye was just so unexpected. It obviously belonged there, meshing easily with the familiar nuances of his face, but I'd never seen it. 

And then suddenly he stopped, looking down with a slight frown of consternation, and I had no idea why... 

She'd looked so lovely, sprawled expectantly on a sea of pale green silk, her hair pooling around her head, a few wavy strands branching into caramel rivulets that ran over breast and shoulder before flowing back into the rest. Eyes darkened into violet, she was almost trembling with anticipation, and so was I -- 

Until I looked down and caught the two dark smears of dirt left by my hands, marring the sheets, and remembered the mud caked on my boots and likely my pant legs. I'd spent the afternoon in an empty lot, working my frustration out through the old sword forms. I'd completely forgotten how disheveled I'd been as soon as I'd crossed the threshold into the brunt of her anger. Belatedly I hoped the couch hadn't fared too badly. 

"Serra, I'm filthy. Your sheets--" __

My **sheets**? "Do you really think I care about that now?" I practically howled. But I could tell from the look on his face that it really bothered him, and as tidy as he was, perhaps it wasn't only the dirt on the sheets that made him uncomfortable. He was frowning now at the dirt under his nails. 

Well, I was a resourceful girl. I wasn't going to let him weasel out of this by showering and cooling off and deciding that the time still wasn't right... 

"All right then, I have another idea...c'mon." 

I dragged him into the huge bathroom that used to feel so lonely when Jecht was away. Now, it was just mine, as comfortable as an old sock. The tub was my favorite, a huge marble pool we'd both loved, since I didn't know any blitzer who didn't get claustrophobic in a tub where he couldn't move around. I started running the water and turned to divest Auron of his clothing. 

Somehow, whereas I'd been quite prepared to take off everything and make unabashed love to her a scant few moments ago, being stripped and put into the bath like a child was completely different. It was a different kind of nakedness, a more vulnerable exposure. My expression was not lost on her. 

"Stop being stupid, Auron," she mock-reprimanded. "You can't get in like that. Just get naked already." She whipped her shirt over her head, and I was suddenly mesmerized. "See? You won't be going in alone--" A gasp cut her off when I reached to touch what she offered. 

_His palms brushed me with a touch that was feather-light. He no longer hesitated when I went after the buckles and buttons. I tried not to lose any but at least one was liberated in my haste. _

He stepped down into the water, sinking up to mid-chest, and offered me a hand. "My lady?" 

The water was warmer than blood, infusing bone-deep heat into every inch of my skin, but it had nothing on the fire in his gaze that belied the casually cordial voice. 

She drifted lazily toward me, coming to rest between my knees, her hair waving gracefully down into the water, the submerged strands flowing like a silken cloak behind her, rippling with the slightest motion. 

She reached for the soap, an oval bar that worked into a lather smelling of sandalwood and cinnamon, and I closed my eyes when she began to work it into my shoulders and neck, relaxing as she worked out kinks I had not been aware of until that very moment. I sank deeper and let my arms go completely slack as she started next on those...then legs, feet... 

_I loved touching the planes and valleys of his chest and stomach, the slick feel of wet skin under soapy fingers, and the way he wriggled a bit when I caressed a ticklish spot just below his ribs, or the slight gasp when my fingers circled just a bit lower. Perhaps this had not been such a bad idea after all. The bed could wait. The sound he made when I brushed him made me wonder how much longer he could. _

His eye flew open when I shifted to settle over him, and I had to laugh at his startled expression. He pressed against my stomach, and suddenly I could not wait any longer, either. 

"Don't they make love underwater in Spira?" she teased, while I tried not to think about any previous times she'd done this. 

Then her arms closed around me, drawing us together, and protesting was the furthest thing from my mind. 

-------------------------------------- 

_We did eventually move to the bed. _

That first night...I have never felt so beautiful, or adored. Putting words to it seems somehow to cheapen it, so I will say only that it was as though he worshipped my body with his own, each touch so reverent, as though I offered some precious gift to be treasured. If Jecht had been a blazing wildfire, energetic and passionate, Auron was the molten core of the earth, buried under miles of rock, hot enough to melt stone. The intensity of it was almost painful. Comparing them was not something I did. They were vastly different men; of course their lovemaking was not the same. Jecht was my past, Auron was my present, and I had love enough in my heart for both. It makes no sense, but the more I loved one, the more in turn I loved the other. 

She was so beautiful, delicate. She looked to me for protection and strength, and the Guardian in me would never die; I wanted most in this world to protect, to be needed. Yet she gave me so much more than that; this was no pampered priest's daughter who asked her father for a pretty toy she might play with, and I was no longer quite so pretty. Serra loved a man broken and put together again, no longer quite whole; she loved me knowing the full truth of what I was. I think I had begun to love her the instant I saw her, and that every breath taken since then had strengthened the devotion. This felt like my last chance at a happiness denied me by a life dedicated to destroying Sin, an opportunity at something I'd never thought to know. The question of reality seemed unimportant and trivial. I loved her, and she loved me, wasn't that real enough? 

Why shouldn't I take this chance? Why shouldn't I let myself love her? I can't forget Jecht, but neither can I do anything for him until Tidus is grown. For the first time in years, ever since dedicating myself to Braska's safeguarding, my life is my own. 

I lay awake a long time afterward, content to hold her, loath to sleep. Her slow, even breaths brushed my cheek, roseate lips and pale cheek catching the bright blue-white light of the moon. The rest of her slept hidden in the shadow of my broader form, as I lay curled protectively around her. 

I drew a finger gently across the unearthly softness of the fuller, lower lip, desperate to touch her but loath to rouse her from whatever pleasant dream curved the delicate mouth into a small, contented smile. 

It caught at my heart suddenly, that smile, and I wondered uneasily of which of us she dreamed: myself, or Jecht. 

She stirred, and I held my breath, caught immobile by the sudden fear of what I might see in her eyes when she awoke: guilt or regret at our actions, or worse, sorrow that it wasn't within the circle of _his_ arms that she'd awoken. 

Then lilac-pale orbs opened, flooding me with a shocked warmth at what lay in their depths, such a deep, boundless, unconditional love. She smiled, a true, beautiful smile that was meant only for me. 

Me. 

------------------------ 

When they became lovers in truth, I knew. 

My recollection of being Sin begins with the blood of Braska and ends on the point of my own sword, with a black sea of pain in between. Oh. Forgive me for jumping ahead -- my memory, for all that it is unforgivingly lucid, is not very...linear. 

How I knew, I cannot say. Our hearts were bound through blood, dream and time, so perhaps it is not that remarkable. But there I was, shut up in the prison of my own body with a maniac, a monster, and the fragmented facets of my own personality, and I knew. 

The knowing drove me insane. Well, more insane. 

It isn't fair! How long have I been trapped here? How much longer will I be? And there he is, only a little bit undead, and _fucking my wife_. 

You practically gave him permission, idiot. 

What else could I do? He was there at my request. I couldn't stand to see him suffer more. Falling in love with her was probably the worst thing that could have happened for him. 

_Who_ is suffering? How bad is it really, for him? Compared to this? 

_Shut up! All of you!_

To my surprise, they all did. Even Yu Yevon stopped the mocking, insane laughter. Briefly. 

But peace never lasted long. 

In my desperation, I visited her in sleep, though I never meant to do so, finding myself there unawares. Then I meant only to hold her, nothing more, but she sensed me, and spoke. 

A better man than me might have left, and spared her. But I was never a better man, and by then there was little "man" left in me. I tried to shield her from the worst, but I'm afraid she sensed the wrongness, and my sins were compounded. 

It set her on the path to ruin. 

--------------------------------------   
End Chapter 17 

Wow, I suck, I know. It's been what, over a year since I updated? I can't believe it has been that long. RL sucks right now, but I'm trying to get my writing done. 

If you missed it, don't forget to check out the picture of Auron on the roof by Mimi, you can find it on my profile page. Now in color. There is also a link to another Auron-in-Zanarkand sketch. It's awesome. 

Song lyrics by Sarah McLachlan 


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